Endurance (5 page)

With nowhere
else to go; he realised he had to walk down through the tunnel to
the next stop to search for a clear exit. The thought of this sent
a shiver down his spine, his palms began to sweat and the hairs on
his neck stood on end.

Tom took a
cautious step toward the darkness. He was startled when he heard a
scream as it echoed through the blackness. It sounded like a grown
man. Tom took a step; followed by another. Then yet another step,
until he stumbled over something on his left side. He knelt
cautiously, trying to protect his injured leg as much as possible.
He leaned forward, squinting to make the best of the feeble light.
Tom saw that he had tripped over the corpse of a young man, in his
early twenties. He was wearing a green polo shirt and blue jeans,
soaked in blood. The clothes clung tightly to his body. His arm was
bloody, with deep scratches. Tom looked closer because something
was very wrong with his arm. Then he jumped back rapidly,
nauseated. The arm had been gnawed upon. Something had been dining
upon this young man’s arm. Tom felt the bile climb into his throat;
he vomited violently and fell onto his hands and knees.

Screams faded
into the distance, but Tom tried to block them out of his mind. He
stared at the filthy train tracks; the musky scent of the tracks
and the smell of the rotting corpse overwhelmed his senses, making
his stomach roil uneasily. Tom continued to focus on the
dust-filled tracks. He watched the clumps of dust rolling from his
knees, past his hands toward the tunnel, blown by a breeze that
entered the stop behind him.

He placed his
palms on the grimy wall and pulled himself to his feet. Tom stepped
away from the wall and stood upright, facing the tunnel. Clenching
his shaking fists, he began to walk toward the tunnel. As he
stumbled past the corpse, shadows wrapped around him as if they
were dragging him into their gaping maw. He disappeared into the
darkness…

Tom warily
began to walk through the tunnel, jumping at every little sound.
After walking for a few minutes, he felt a bit frightened when he
heard a roar not too far from him. He paused. He listened
carefully, hearing nothing. He stood there alone in the dreary
darkness. Then, he heard something tap ahead of him. The tapping
began to get closer to him. He tried to make himself as small and
still as possible, holding his breath so he could hear everything
better. He identified the noise as a large mass of rats running
toward him; he heard them squeaking and their feet patting on the
ground. As they surrounded him, they began to gnaw on his feet. Tom
tried to stand still in order to let them pass, but the little
beasts began to run up his legs. He felt them feasting on his
flesh. In pain and terror, Tom ran. He ran over the moving bodies
of the rats, crushing them beneath him, even as they continued to
climb him and bite him mercilessly. Tom struck himself over and
over as he ran, trying to dislodge the rats. At last, there was
light indicating the next stop; he began to sprint. The rats fell
out of his trouser legs as he raced toward the next stop. He stared
at the circular light indicated the next stop. .He halted when he
saw someone walking in full view of the light. Tom stood frozen to
the spot. The hairs on the back of his neck stood upright. He began
to run again. The person moved in front of the light again. The
rats were gone. He hadn’t even noticed them leaving.

Why were the
rats running?

Tom stopped
and stared straight down the tunnel.

Should I
follow the rats? It could be a survival mechanism.

‘
Hello?’ Tom
shouted.

He decided to
continue moving forward until he was startled by a roar from
behind. He turned to look behind him and tripped over his own feet,
and fell. He leaned forward to see what appeared to be a human
figure standing in front of him. He quickly jumped up and sprinted
to the light. As he ran, he heard his footsteps and the steps of
someone else right behind him. With no time to look to see who or
what it was, he concentrated on getting to the next stop. He ran
and ran but heard the steps getting closer and closer behind him,
the breath of whatever pursued him louder and louder in his ears.
He made it to the next stop. He climbed onto the platform and
turned around. No one was there and nothing exited the tunnel
behind him. Nothing at all.

Tom quickly
looked around the new stop for a weapon of some sort. He found an
iron bar and picked it up. As he turned to walk toward the tunnel,
a fist slammed into the left side of his chin. The lower portion of
his face shifted violently to the right. Having had no warning at
all, he was completely unprepared for the hit. He staggered as he
became dizzy and off-balance. He rushed to regain his balance and
looked about to see who attacked him and was punched again, this
time on the bridge of his nose; he was blinded by the immediate
spray of blood and the pain. As he bent to cover his face, he was
kicked in the stomach and punched repeatedly in the head. He lost
his footing and fell onto the floor, dropping the iron bar. As he
tried to catch his breath, he was kicked in the stomach a second
time. His attacker gave him no time to mount an offense; Tom was
grabbed by the scruff of his neck, punched in the face again, held
down, and was stamped on. Tom took a massive beating until a
gunshot interrupted the sounds of the one-sided fight. The sound of
the shot rippled through the station. He heard a heavy ‘flop’; it
reminded Tom of the sound Anna made when she hit the ground after
being hit by the car.

Tom looked to
his right and saw a scruffy, old man a few feet away from him with
several bullet holes in his chest and stomach.

Tom wiped his
severely bruised and swollen face and looked at his hands. They
were covered in blood. He sighed deeply and pulled himself up so he
could take a good look at his saviour. Before him stood a woman
with a dark complexion, leaning casually on her shotgun. She was
about five foot eight, with her black hair tied in a ponytail. She
wore dark green army trousers with a white vest covered in spots of
blood. She looked no older than twenty-five.

‘
Hey there.
How long you bin’ down ‘ere?’

Tom didn’t
answer immediately. He continued to stare timidly at her gun. He
rolled over and pushed himself up onto his feet.

‘
I don’t
really know, about two days.’

‘
Ahh right,
we didn’t hear you or anything. If we knew you were there, buddy,
we would have tried to come help you out. You look a mess, no
offence.’

‘
None taken.
I don’t look much better than this normally anyway.’ Tom laughed
and so did the woman. ‘I’m Tom. Thanks for saving my life.’ Tom
reached his hand out to shake her hand. She firmly clutched his
hand.

‘
Danni, nice
to meet you.’

‘
Do you know
what’s going on up above?’

‘
To be honest
with ya, I don’t. We weren’t up there for long, we knew something
was wrong and came down here. All that I can tell you is that
people seem to be getting infected by something.’

Tom tried to
fold his arms together and felt pain across his pectoral muscles
and his ribs. He put his arms by his sides.

‘
What makes
you say that?’ asked Tom.

‘
Well, there
was a group of about eight of us. One of them was a doctor. He
spotted that we were all having a reaction to something but we
can’t work out what. We thought it was something down here from the
rats but it can’t be because people from above were coming down
here with some of the symptoms already and…’

‘
What
symptoms?’ Tom interrupted

‘
Well, like
midnight sweats, having nightmares, enlarged veins, blood shot
eyes, losing senses, becoming aggressive and eventually becoming
deadly predators.’

‘
But I have
all those symptoms; does that mean I’m infected?’ Tom said, with a
note of challenge in his voice.

‘
Yes. We all
are…’ Danni said confidently.

There was
silence at the stop. Tom looked at his arms and pinched one of them
till it bled. He looked up at Danni. She had bloodshot eyes. They
looked sore.

‘
This can’t
be right, how can you be sure?’

‘
The doctor
did experiments on himself and others. We had to go to quite a
length to be sure.’

‘
Where is he
now then? Let me talk to him.’

‘
You’ll have
a job; he’s dead.’

Tom looked to
the ground in distress, scratching his head.

‘
How can you
be so sure about this?’

‘
Basically,
the doc started becoming aggressive, so I tied him up to a bench
with a dog chain. In time he became worse, his skin became
disgusting. His eyes turned red and actually bled and he was
bleeding elsewhere too; he choked on his own blood at times. His
teeth turned yellow. We kept him like that for awhile but he gained
some strength. He broke out of the chains and killed five of our
group. He was about to kill me, but my dad shot him in the head. It
took more than one shot. It took a whole round. That tramp would
have killed you, if it wasn’t for me, and he only had the early
signs, but he still would have killed you. The doc said the disease
affects the brain. Something has gone airborne, most likely
worldwide too. That’s all I can tell you. What do you
know?’

‘
How many are
left in your group now?’

‘
There’s me
and my dad. What do you know?’

‘
I don’t know
anything. All I know is that one minute I was fine and about to
propose to my girlfriend, and then all of a sudden the electricity
and everything just stopped working, including the cars on the
road. There was darkness.’ Tom began to sob slightly. ‘Then my
girlfriend was killed just as I was about to propose to
her.’

‘
Oh my god…
I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Danni sounded truly sad for him. She
walked up to Tom and held his shoulders, forcing him to wince at
the pain of her touch. ‘I’m really sorry.’ There was a moment of
silence with Tom sniffing every so often. Danni continued to speak.
‘Don’t you think it sounds like an EMP?’

‘
Electric
magnetic pulse? Like the ones on action films?’ Tom asked, and
Danni confirmed with a nod. Tom continued to speak. ‘I suppose it
could be. I never thought of that. But I was above here for a long
time and I was attacked by some hovercraft machine that was
shooting everything above ground. I can’t think what it could be, a
spaceship or an alien attack?’

‘
To be honest
Tom, I couldn’t tell you. It doesn’t sound like human activity. You
cannot trust anyone these days and if we’re dealing with an alien
invasion or some sort of attack from space. It would be best to
stay down here.’

Tom looked
disappointed and replied.

‘
I had a plan
to go up there and go to my house. It might sound mad, but I have
this old cassette player that has radio frequency on it that allows
you to speak and communicate on other frequencies. I wanted to get
to it and see if I could get any contact from anyone. Then we could
try to see if we could get together with them to try to figure out
what is going on and then try and stop this thing. Tom heard
footsteps behind him and a bullet being jacked into a gun
chamber.

‘
Me and my
daughter are not going anywhere with you.’ The gravelly voice of a
man standing behind Tom bellowed, ‘Turn around!’ His voice echoed
through the tunnel.

Tom turned
around slowly, with his hands up, hoping not to startle this
clearly crazy man. In front of him stood a huge, black man, holding
an AK47. He was about 6 feet tall, wearing a red jumper and black
trousers. His skin looked blotchy and his eyes were
bloodshot

‘
Dad. Come
on, now, he’s fine.’

‘
I don’t
trust anyone.’

‘
Tom, this is
my dad. You can call him Graham.’

‘
He won’t be
calling me anything.’

‘
Dad, we are
going above. We have a good plan that could work. He has
information about above.’

‘
I heard what
he said. An alien invasion? Come on Danni. I thought you were more
intelligent than that.’

‘
Dad, how can
you be so sure? We don’t know what’s going on. We’re going up above
now; if you want to come, then please help us.’

Danni grabbed
Tom by the arm and dragged him along with her. They walked toward
the exit and up the steps. They reached the top and looked at the
destruction above. Danni was on Tom’s left and Graham was on his
right. Graham gave Tom a handgun.

‘
You’re
probably gonna need this.’

‘
Cheers.’ Tom
put the gun behind his back in between his trousers and belt. He
looked back at Graham. His eyes were filled with blood. Blood began
to dribble slightly out of his right eye. Graham quickly wiped it
away and began to cough.

Tom chose to
ignore Graham’s worsening symptoms. ‘This is near Jubilee Park.
I’ve already been here. Luckily, my house wasn’t far from here;
it’s about a two minute walk. It might be quicker now that there’s
nowhere to walk around to get there.’ Tom said.