RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) (5 page)

He hear
s shouting from the car ahead of them. Others peer through the door window at the car behind. The train is underground with only the fluorescent lights in the cars for illumination.

The door open
s behind him. A policeman comes through with another two men behind him, passengers who think they might be of help. Hu backs far enough away from the thrashing woman to make it clear he isn’t the cause of this. He doesn’t want the policeman to think he is attacking her.

Regardless, the bobby
clearly thinks it. Hu can tell by the man’s expression. He is guilty until proven innocent. The man’s nightstick comes out as he approaches Hu.

“What’s
all this then? Keep your hands where I can see them!”

“I didn’t do anything,” Hu
pleads, raising his hands. “She’s a friend. She’s been sick. I’m not sure what’s happening to her. I’m a doctor.”

The policeman t
akes that statement in along with his scrub clothes. His whole demeanor changes. “Well, what’s happening to her then?” he asks, expecting the doctor among them to know.

“It could be a seizure,” Hu sa
ys, trying to think like a doctor.

Sharon
clenches her teeth, her screams trying to get out, but barred like waters behind a dam. She smashes her head back against the window again. Hu and the others stop, watching with horror on their faces. None of them know what to do.

Her head bang
s the glass again and again until cracks spider-web through it. Still, the safety glass refuses to give way. Sharon continues. She foams at the mouth like a rabid dog. Blood splatters across the glass behind her head as she thrashes and crashes against it.

“We’ve got to stop her from hurting herself
!” the policeman shouts.

He approache
s her with his hands out, the nightstick still held in his right. The two men who came to help stay back where Hu is standing. Neither of them appears anxious to do anything. Hu doesn’t blame them. He wishes now that Sharon had never noticed him at Paddington.

Faces press against the door glass at either end of the car. Curious passengers ha
ve their cell phones out, trying to record something that will likely end up on Youtube as soon as they log on at their homes. Hu wants to leave now. He did not sign up for this. Then he notices his book bag and laptop still sits by his seat. Only his cell phone has come away with him, the ear buds dangling down onto the floor at his side.

H
e remembers something that did not click in his mind before. The hospital. The boy who attacked the nurses and doctors trying to restrain him, the same one who killed the security guard. That boy attacked Sharon also. She mentioned him biting her, but only barely breaking the skin.

What if the boy contracted something, something that made him go crazy?
What if he is a carrier for this disease? He might have infected everyone he attacked at the hospital.

“Wait!” Hu call
s to the policeman.

I
t’s too late.

The policeman holster
s his nightstick. He places a hand on Sharon’s arm. Her eyes fly open, red-rimmed and bloodshot. She shoots off the seat like an ape, grabbing the officer’s head in her hands. He falls backwards with her on top, gripping the sides of his head.

Hu jump
s back as they land in the floor in front of him. The other men step back, looking bewildered. Hu runs past them for the door. He saw first hand what happened at the hospital. He saw when that crazed boy attacked Sharon and then killed the security guard who dragged him off of her. The boy mauled him and tore his throat out with his teeth.

Sharon
goes berserk behind him, pounding the officer’s head against the floor of the train car. He fights back, but barely. Her painted nails claw bloody gashes across his head and face.

Hu
is the first to the door at the head of the car, but the other two passengers try to get out now also. They crash into him in their panic, trying to get to the door before him. Hu’s face hits the safety glass hard, bloodying his nose.

Hu elbow
s the man behind him and kicks back at the man’s legs to get him off. He falls back onto the floor, hindering the second man also. Hu unlatches the lock and slides the door aside. The noise of the train comes at him through the small gap in the cars.

The people in the adjacent car, seeing his desperation but knowing he ha
s been with the girl and may have overcome the policeman, won’t open the door for him. Then the second man is with him at the glass, trying to get them to open. Realizing this man in the scrubs must not be the danger, they open up to him.

The door slid
es aside, and Hu passes through, bumping into the passengers in the other car as they try to make room for him. The second man comes through right on Hu’s heels. Then he screams.

Hu turn
s back and sees Sharon has come through right behind them. She leaps upon the man’s back and drives him to the floor, biting and clawing at him. The rest of the passengers in the car, most of who were close to the door trying to get a look, scream in terror as the monstrous mad woman attacks the man in front of them.

Hu
goes through the crowd, pushing some out of his way, trying to put as much distance as possible between him and Sharon. He isn’t sure if she might be after him, but he also has no intention of hanging around to find out. If she is carrying the same pathogen that caused the boy at the hospital to go crazy, then he doesn’t want her anywhere near.

An older woman sit
s with her husband near the front of the car. They don’t know what is going on at the other end, or what to do. Hu passes them by in favor of the door. He wants out of this car.

Pandemonium
breaks out among the passengers behind him. Sharon is at the center of it. Hu glances back, but he can’t see much of her at the moment. Some of the passengers are trying to get away, while others are fighting. They pound on the young nurse; trying to put her down, kill her, whatever they can to stop this madness.

Hu
wants none of it. He trained in Jujitsu for a couple of years, but there is no way to fight with someone and be sure not to get a mark on you. Disease doesn’t care if you are an amazing fighter, a rock star, a billionaire, or anything else. All it needs is a compatible host to infect. As far as he is concerned, distance is the only saving grace in a situation like this, and he wants more of it.

He depresse
s the latch and slides the door aside, practically leaping to the next. There is no one in this car, but he can see one or two passengers in the next ahead. He runs through to the door at the opposite end. Another car between him and Sharon can’t hurt. Maybe he can even warn the few that are ahead of him and get some help.

Again, he slid
es the doors aside, one after the other, running through. He is out of breath by now, as he comes into the car. One of the passengers, a young woman, stands up.

“Is something wrong? Are you all right?” she ask
s.

Hu sh
akes his head, panting. “We’ve got to get off of this train!” he shouts through ragged breaths.

“You can’t get off,” sa
ys the man sitting two benches away. “Not until the next station.”

“We can’t wait!” Hu shout
s. “She’s infected!”

The two passengers look at him in bewilderment. They ha
ve no idea what he is talking about. However,
infected
is one of those words that sets off an alarm in modern society, and they both register this.

“Infected with what?” the woman
asks, looking back the way Hu came from.

An empty car st
ands between them and the commotion taking place, so it is difficult to see if anything at all amiss is actually happening. Still, in a world where terrorists willingly fly jetliners into skyscrapers and set off sarin gas in subways, they know enough to take possible threats seriously. After all, it has become almost common to have people shot in schools and bombs set off in public places. The only way to be sure and stay safe is to take potential threats seriously.

“We could go to the driver,” the woman suggest
s.

“Get her to stop the train,” the man add
s.

Hu sh
akes his head. He already knows what their procedure is: attempt to get the train to the next station. What if they don’t have that long? Sharon might still get away from the passengers and come after him. Or, even worse, the others might turn crazy like her.

He
saw World War Z with Brad Pitt. Who hasn’t seen a zombie movie or two these days? He knows a viral pathogen that turns people into monsters might only require seconds to transform them from nice people to snarling, aggressive killers.

The more he let
s those fears takeover in his mind, the more Hu realizes this speeding train is a death trap. He has to get out. The feeling becomes claustrophobic. He can’t breathe. What if this thing is airborne?

“We can’t wait!” he shout
s. “They’ll come for us! The driver won’t stop the train. They’re not allowed to. It’s up to us.”

N
ow, the woman panics also. She hasn’t seen a monster, hasn’t seen anything at all except this terrified Asian man shouting about infected people at the other end of the train. Still, tears roll down her face. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to be a zombie.

“The door control!” Hu shout
s, finding the lever that will depressurize the pneumatic controls on the side doors and allow them to open. It is as good as an old fashioned emergency stop cord on a steam train. The train’s safety system will automatically stop it rather than allow the door to be opened while in transit. Best of all, the driver can’t override it from where they are in the train’s cockpit.

Hu grab
s the lever and puts all his strength into it. In the back of his mind, he knows there is a heavy fine attached to misuse of this emergency control. He doesn’t care anymore. They can fine him all they want. He isn’t going to die over the stupidity of some driver unwilling to stop long enough for them to run for their lives.

He wrenche
s the lever over and hears the pneumatic hiss as pressure on the doors release. Almost immediately, they feel the inertial shift as the train slows, the electric engine shutting down. They come to a stop quickly.

Alarm lights start
to flash and the computer voice says something about the emergency. Hu no longer listens. “Help me with the door,” he says to the man.

They hear something bang behind them and turn back to the car where Hu c
ame from. Sharon hits the door window, her face bruised and bloody. She looks at Hu, or at least that is his impression. She beats at the door, tugging on it, trying to get through to him.

“Pull them open,”
Hu hisses, struggling with one side of the door as the man pulls the other side.

The woman start
s to scream, watching as Sharon smashes her face into the safety glass. A great bloody knot rises on her forehead from the pounding, but she doesn’t seem to notice any pain. The glass cracks with the force of each new impact. It will either shatter, or buckle and pop free of the frame.

The doors finally g
ive way. Hu and the other two passengers in the car with him leap through to the pebbly ground outside. Another set of tracks lie a few feet away, allowing trains to move in both directions.

“Be careful of the third rail,” the man sa
ys. “There’s enough juice running through that to cook us both.”

The tunnel itself
is not entirely dark. Lights are spaced every one hundred feet along the wall and ceiling. However, these are not the bright shining lamps one might hope for in a situation like this. Their colored lenses leave them dull, providing only mild ambient luminosity. Still, it is better than nothing.

“We can follow these toward the next station,” Hu sa
ys triumphantly.

He kn
ows it might seem like a foolish plan, but he still feels it is better to leave the zombies behind in the train while they go on foot. Distance is still the key to staying alive. It is only when they pass the next car ahead that Hu realizes his mistake.

The side doors on this car
are also open. Yet, there are no passengers inside and no one ahead of them on the tracks. He turns back, looking at the train. All of the doors on all of the cars stand open. They all opened automatically, when Hu opened the first set.

A beam of light land
s on Hu and the other two passengers where they stand. He turns to find the driver standing in the door of the first car, shining a flashlight at them. The woman is heavy set and doesn’t look happy.

“Are you the ones who stopped this train?” she bellow
s. It is an accusation not a question.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” the woman passenge
r says, speaking up next to Hu.

“What are you talking about?” the driver ask
s. “Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in for this?”