City of the Dead (36 page)

The others stared across the tunnel in dismay.

"Where you going, Forrest?" Smokey's corpse called.

"You guys go ahead," Forrest shouted to the others. "We'll catch up, if we can!"

Jim flashed him a thumbs up and shut the door.

"Hurry up!" Steve shouted.

Forrest and Quinn spared Steve one last glance, and then they disappeared into the second service tunnel.

Steve cracked his neck from side to side, and planted his legs as firmly as he could, wincing from the pain. His leg felt cold, and the blood had run down into his shoe, soaking his sock and pants leg.

Smokey stumbled to his feet and pointed at the rats. "Say hello to my little friends, Steve."

"Never figured you for a Pacino fan," Steve grunted.

The zombie ran toward him, blood still dripping from the hole in his chest. Steve opened fire. The bullet shattered the zombie's sternum. The pilot readjusted his aim and the second one drilled into the creature's forehead. Smokey tottered forward over the tracks and lay still.

"Come on," Steve shouted, turning back to the rats. "Let's see what you've got!"

His machine gun roared. Brass jackets rained down, and the air became thick with smoke. The weapon grew hot in his hands.

337

As the rats bore down on him, Steve realized that he had never felt more alive.

He smiled, hoping that his son would be waiting on the other side.

Pigpen turned the flashlight back on, and they gathered around him.

"What about the others?" Frankie asked.

"Cut off," Jim said. "Forrest said they'd try to catch up."

"How? They got a map?"

Jim shrugged.

Don wiped the mud and gore from his face. "What now? They've blocked our way to the airport. And even if we could, going there would be useless without our pilots."

God meowed, twining himself between Danny's feet. The boy reached down and petted him.

"The bomb shelter," Pigpen said.

"Ramsey's?" Jim asked. "But we're cut off from that too."

Pigpen shook his head. "I told you-there's lots of them down here. I know of one nearby. Last time I was there, it was still stocked. Ain't been used in years. Government built it and then forgot about it when the Russians became our friends."

"Surely there are people in it now," Don said.

"No, I don't think so. Only folks that knew about it were me and God, and my buddies Fran and Seiber. Fran got killed at a soup kitchen in the East Village. A zombie shoved his head into a vat of boiling stew. And Seiber was shot by five-oh, down on Madison Avenue during the riots. They caught him looting a jewelry store."

338

"How far is it?" Jim asked.

"Eight stories down and a little to the south."

"And you know the way?" Frankie whispered, not at all convinced.

"Yeah." Pigpen started forward, then stopped and turned back to them.

"And if I don't, God will deliver us instead."

The cat sprang out from between Danny's feet and ran ahead, green eyes glinting in the darkness.

Quinn stopped when he heard the gunshots. Steve yelled something unintelligible, muted by the concrete between them.

"Forrest? Maybe we ought to go back. We can't just leave him. Abandoning Bates was bad enough."

There was no reply. The big man had been swallowed up by the darkness.

"Forrest?"

More gunfire echoed.

"Forrest, quit fucking around!"

Quinn crawled on his hands and knees. The tunnel was tall enough for him to stand up in, but it was pitch-black, and the feeble light of his glow stick only made the darkness worse.

He crept forward, cautiously feeling his way. Then the floor disappeared beneath his hands, replaced by a hole. The chasm ran from wall to wall, completely blocking his progress. The edges of the crevice were jagged, and the masonry crumbled beneath his fingertips. Cold air brushed his face.

"Forrest?"

His voice echoed back to him from below.

"Oh shit."

The big man had obviously fallen down the hole.

339

Quinn called again, but there was no answer. He had no way of knowing if Forrest could even hear him. How far down was it? Maybe he was unconscious. Or dead.

Behind him, more distant now, Steve continued shooting.

Carefully, Quinn turned around and started crawling back to him.

"I'm not leaving you, man. We've lost enough people today."

The shots were sporadic now.

"I'm coming, Steve! Just hold on!"

He made it back to the doorway and put his ear against the cold steel. The gunshots had stopped, both Steve's and the zombie's. All he could hear was a high-pitched squealing.

Slowly, he opened the door. The rusty hinges creaked.

Quinn gasped, horrified at what lay before him.

The squealing didn't belong to the rats. It was coming from Steve. The tunnel was flooded with wriggling, rotting vermin. The brown, furry creatures were almost six feet deep in places. If he weren't seeing it, he would have never believed there were this many rats in the world, let alone New York. They crawled overtop one another to reach the ledge. The human zombies waded through them, toward the doorway that Jim and the others had disappeared into.

Steve's arm jutted from the sea of rats, like a buoy in the middle of the ocean. The rest of him was buried beneath the squirming mass. Incredibly, his fingers were still twitching, his fist clenching and unclenching.

"Steve!"

Quinn crouched on the edge of the service ledge, and reached for Steve's hand.

"Get off him, you little fuckers!"

340

The rats chattered angrily, and Quinn was sure he could hear words-formed by creatures that lacked the necessary equipment for speech. Attracted by his outburst, the human zombies turned, and raised their weapons.

Quinn grabbed Steve's hand. Steve's fingers curled around his. Quinn pulled. His friend didn't budge. He jerked harder, and suddenly, the arm came free. Quinn stumbled backward, knocking his head against the concrete wall. Steve's arm came with him, their hands still clenched together.

The rest of Steve stayed with the rats.

Gibbering, Quinn tossed the severed arm aside and turned to run. A rifle cracked. The first shot caught him in the leg, but he felt no pain. The second round punched the breath from him, and brought a muted burning sensation. Teetering, he fell backward, landing on top of the writhing masses. Hundreds of razor sharp teeth and claws ripped at his flesh. It felt like thousands of tiny needles piercing his skin.

Quinn opened his mouth to scream and a small rat scrabbled inside it, stretching his cheeks as it forced its body farther into the orifice. Its nails slashed at his tongue. Blood welled in his mouth. He was unable to spit it out because the rat blocked his airway. He tried to move his arms and legs, but the creatures' combined weight kept them pinned. His lungs pounded, desperate for air. The last thing he saw was a large rat's misshapen, decaying head, darting for his eyes. Then there was a bright flash of pain, and then he saw no more.

Quinn sank to the bottom of the pile.

Forrest awoke in the dark, soaked to the bone. When he opened his eyes, the darkness did not dissipate. He

341

grimaced, tasting blood, and spat. Gingerly, he explored his mouth with his tongue, and found a gaping hole where a tooth had been.

He was half-submerged in a pool of warm, stinking liquid. He shuddered to think what it was. Slowly, he rose to his feet, sloshing out of the foulness, and checked the rest of his body for injuries. No broken bones, but he was bleeding from at least a dozen different cuts and abrasions.

He stood there in the darkness, shivering and dripping with slime, and tried to get his bearings. He'd been crawling along the tunnel, feeling his way, when suddenly, the floor had disappeared beneath him. He remembered falling, so surprised that he hadn't even had time to shout a warning to Quinn-and then he remembered no more.

"Must have blacked out," he said aloud, and immediately wished he hadn't. His voice echoed off unseen walls, sounding strange and alien to him. When the noise faded, the silence was deafening.

He knelt, feeling around beneath the pool's surface for his weapons, but came up empty. He checked his belt and was relieved to find that he still had an unused glow stick and his knife. He grasped the hilt and pulled it from the sheath. The feel of the blade in his hands was comforting.

Forrest stood still as stone, snapped the glow stick, and waited for his eyes to adjust. The liquid came halfway up to his knees, clinging to him. He wondered again what it was. Finally, he dipped a finger into the pool and brought it to his lips, tasting it. Water- brackish and foul, but only water.

At least it isn't shit, he thought. Even so-I'm in a world of shit anyway.

342

He cocked his head, listening for anything that would indicate his location and whether or not he was alone. Water dripped, but other than that, the silence was as solid as the blackness around him. There were no shouts or footsteps or even gunfire, nothing that meant the others-or the zombies-were nearby.

When he could see, he edged forward. He was in an old, unused tunnel, left over from an earlier era. The walls were circular, and lined with crumbling, red bricks. Lichen and mold clung to the cracks, and a thin stream of brown water trickled along the floor.

He debated whether to call out for Quinn, or to remain silent. If there were zombies nearby, he didn't want to alert them to his presence. But what if Quinn had tumbled down after him, and was hurt or unconscious? He couldn't just leave him here.

"Quinn?"

The darkness didn't respond.

"Yo, Quinn! Speak up if you're there."

His voice taunted him, transforming into something unfamiliar.

Forrest crept slowly forward, his body coiled and ready for anything. The tunnel sloped downward at a steady decline, and he picked his steps carefully, not wanting to slip on the slime-covered bricks.

"Hello?" he called again, and thought he heard something rustle behind him.

Forrest turned and his feet shot out from under him. He landed on his back, his jaws slamming shut. His knife skittered away, and he slithered down the tunnel, desperately grasping for a handhold.

Then the tunnel disappeared, and suddenly, he was falling again. He splashed into a large pool of water, and sank beneath the surface. His feet touched bottom and

343

he kicked for the top. He emerged, choking and gasping for breath.

Something brushed against his leg. Forrest jumped, and slapped at his thigh. He glanced down to see a small, white flash darting away beneath the surface-some kind of albino fish.

Treading water, he swam across the pool to a circular concrete platform. He pulled himself up and collapsed, gasping for breath. He wished for his knife, and glanced back down at the pool. Albino fish teemed in the water by the dozens. Forrest wondered if they were some type of deformed goldfish, flushed down here long ago.

He tried to figure out what to do next. Climbing back up the shaft was impossible, yet he didn't see any other tunnels to escape through. He considered the possibility that the exit might be underwater, and surveyed the pool. The ripples had ceased, and the dark surface was still again. Something white jutted up from the center; a pipe or possibly a piece of wood, bleached from years of floating in this chemical soup.

He bent down and peered over the edge, studying the fish closer. One of them swam up to the concrete island, and Forrest froze.

Its left eye was missing.

"Dead. They're fucking dead."

The piece of wood began to move, slowly coming toward him. Something glinted in the darkness. Teeth. Rows of long, pointed teeth.

"Oh my God ..."

His conversation with Pigpen, when he'd scoffed at the bum's tales of what lay beneath the city, came back to him.

And there are alligators down there, Forrest. Big

344

albino fuckers with red eyes and white skin. I had a buddy named Wilbanks. He lost a leg to one.

A baleful red eye glared at him, and then the alligator clambered up onto the platform. Pustulent, open sores covered its scaly hide, and its snout was a raw, red wound. Vertebrae poked out of the creature's side, and a chunk of flesh was missing from its massive tail.

Forrest backed away. The alligator lumbered after him. It opened its mouth and hissed. The stench of its foul breath was overpowering.

Exhausted and weaponless, his back to the wall, Forrest could only scream.

The zombie nosed his legs with its decaying snout. Forrest kicked it hard. The jaws snapped shut on his leg, and the darkness erupted with hot points of light. The alligator tugged hard, dragging him toward the water.

Forrest slammed his head against the concrete, desperately trying to crack his own skull open before the creature could kill him.

The creature severed his leg at the knee with a loud crunch. Forrest struck his head against the platform again and again, and felt warm wetness on the back of his scalp. But it was too late to kill himself. The alligator rushed forward and opened its mouth.

"Headfirst, you motherfucker. Headfirst! I ain't coming back!"

He leaped into the gaping jaws, and they crunched down on his shoulders.

His last thought was, Choke on it ...

Minutes later, Forrest's severed head opened its eyes inside the alligator's stomach.

345 TWENTY

They ran, not caring now if the creatures heard their flight. Caution and their sense of self-preservation had given way to sheer terror. Their feet pounded down the tunnel, the echoes pursuing them. God leaped through a hole in the wall and they jumped through after him.

Pigpen slid to a stop and opened a circular hatch in the floor, revealing a narrow shaft. They started down it, Jim assisting Danny with the climb. Don brought up the rear and closed the hatch behind them. The shaft continued downward for thirty feet, and the rungs were cold and slippery. Jim's flamethrower tanks kept getting stuck as they descended, and he had to struggle the whole way down.