Screamscapes: Tales of Terror (18 page)

The friend was incredulous, and thought the whole thing was somehow a prank. He laughed and asked George how he did it, how he made the voices come out of his nose.

George held out his hands, palms up, insisting it was real, but at the same time, he was unable to explain it, either. To prove his point, he pulled the microphone from his nose and slipped it into the right nostril.

A different voice started talking through the speakers, just as it had before; but this time, instead of talking about random current events, it started talking about the very friend who sat beside George.

It started telling its audience about all the horrible things the friend had done, of the secret wrongs he had committed against those who loved him, about how he had even betrayed his best friend who sat there, even now, with a microphone up his nose.

Vile, terrible betrayals, things he wouldn’t even have believed true of his worst enemy.

George turned pale as a ghost as he listened, the microphone still nestled inside his nostril. He stared, mouth agape in horror, at the man he had thought was his friend.

He wanted to ask if the things his nose said were true; but he could tell by the look on his friend’s face that they were. No other answer was needed.

Then the voice in his nose fell silent.

George dropped the microphone to the floor and gave his former friend one final look of disgust before walking away, never to return.

The voices in his nose never spoke again, but George didn’t mind.

He figured he nose enough already.

Part of this story really happened.

The rest of it I made up.

I’ll leave it to you to guess which part is which.

The Mole People Beneath The City

T
he 50th Street station was practically empty, rare in New York City at any time of year.

The train was still nowhere in sight. The air in the station was suffocating us, the stench of stale diesel making the wait almost unbearable.

I pulled my daughter closer to me. You have to be careful with those you cherish, especially in a city this big.

Sometimes it eats people,
I thought.

This city had taken my wife long ago. The three of us had been so happy once, but the memory of those times now seemed like a dream, fast fading away. Kat was all I had left in this world and I wasn’t about to lose her, too - not now, not before all her hopes and dreams had been realized.

I peeked around a pillar at the security camera, nestled close to the ceiling near the stairs.

What good would that do anyone? For every camera, malintent hands were still lurking in a thousand dark corners, waiting to snatch the unsuspecting from here to the wherever, in the blink of an eye.

Soon, we would travel into a dark gaping maw; the subway tunnel lay off to our right, indifferent, not imposing. It reminded me of a lazy dog on a hot day with its mouth hanging open, the empty tracks lolling out of the darkness like a tongue.

No more than a dozen late night revelers occupied the stop with us; their conversations mingled as they echoed off the curved ceiling overhead. Whatever energy they had generated earlier at one club or the other was waning fast in the stifling heat and the fluorescent glare.

Standing off a bit from the ebullient youngsters was an old Chinese woman, clutching a stack of crumpled newspapers with claw-like hands. She was hunched and wrinkled, her dark eyes peering through such thin slits that it was impossible to tell if they were open or closed.

I checked my watch for the fourth time in two minutes.

It was one-thirty in the morning and I didn’t like being here. I was ready to get this whole thing over with and go home. I loosened my collar and felt hot sweat trickle down my back.

Where the hell is the train? It should have been here by now.

My Baby Kat, my pride and joy, looked up at me. Beads of sweat glistened on her forehead, above the rim of her pink Hello Kitty sunglasses.

She loved those glasses, refused to take them off whenever we came up to the city; though I knew why, I still thought it a shame. The dark lenses covered up her most beautiful feature: her wide, glowing eyes, pools of molten steel so deep they appeared bottomless.

She squeezed my hand tightly. I knew she was wondering where the train was too.

I took a handkerchief from my pocket and dabbed at the perspiration on her brow. I wondered if she was anxious or simply hot. It was no secret; we both knew how much was riding on tonight. I gave her my most convincing smile, hoping she would buy it.

She cast a wary glance towards the intoxicated merrymakers that shared the platform with us. They were getting louder, laughing stupidly. Any native New Yorker would peg them immediately as a nuisance of the worst sort: out-of-towners.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told Baby Kat as reassurance, whether she needed it or not. Maybe I was only comforting myself.

“We’ll be home soon enough, little one.” I promised.

One of the young men standing nearby pushed his friend playfully towards the edge of the platform, causing him to stumble and almost fall. “Watch out for the third rail!” he shouted.

Morons,
I thought.
But good enough.

“Touch me again and I’ll stick
my
third rail straight up your ass,” the shoved friend retorted, the word
ass
slurred so that it sounded like
ash.

The girls nearby tittered at their rough horseplay. I wondered if they had met them at the club or brought them into the city with them - not that it mattered.

I counted them.

Four girls.

They were pretty enough, but despite their flashy dresses and gaudy makeup I was sure they were nothing more than run-of-the-mill girl next door types. That was okay. Two blondes, a brunette and a red head; I suspected that a closer inspection would reveal they were, in fact, three brunettes and a redhead - but I’d been wrong before.

Five guys.

The jackass doing the shoving was undoubtedly so drunk he would pass out as soon as he sat down on the train. He was certainly the third wheel of the group, the dateless wonder. He probably hoped his sorry display of machismo would entice one of the girls into his empty, pathetic arms. He was oblivious, but it was clear to me that his antics were backfiring.

Except for this wise-ass, I thought everyone in the station seemed harmless enough. Now if the train would just arrive, everything would be fine.

Finally, a cool wind began to sweep across the platform. You can always feel the wind just before the train arrives, before the ground begins to vibrate underfoot, even before the first faint rumble of rushing steel can be heard. The breeze that heralded the approaching train swirled into the station like cool summer rain, even before the first flickers of light emerged from the darkness.

Everyone in the station instinctively turned to face the flowing coolness, drawing in thirsty gulps as it whispered invisibly by - cooling hot sweat, filling oxygen-starved lungs.

“Is this our train, Daddy?” Baby Kat asked softly.

I nodded.

The group beside us became hushed, sensing the change in the atmosphere.

The train was coming. It was late.

A flash of light illuminated the darkness inside the tunnel briefly.

Baby Kat saw something there, raised a trembling finger towards the tunnel and screamed like a kitten dipped in boiling oil.

Everyone in the station spun around to face us, startled by the unexpected howl – everyone except the old Chinese woman. She stood without flinching, unblinking, like one of the wax statues at Madame Toussaud’s.

I dropped to my knees beside Baby Kat and pulled her into my arms.

“What’s wrong, my baby?” I asked as I took her little hands into mine.

“I saw them, Daddy, I saw them. In the tunnel,” she cried.

“Saw what?”

“People, Daddy, there were people in there. I saw them, down in the tunnel on the tracks,” she whimpered. “It’s the mole people coming for us. I’m scared. I want to go home.”

I took her into my arms and held her tight as she sobbed on my shoulder. Several sets of eyes bored into us. “It’s okay, baby girl,” I reassured her. “There’s no such thing as ‘mole people’. It’s just a fairy tale. Don’t worry, we’ll be safe at home soon.”

I scooped her up and she wrapped herself tightly around me, her head heavy and sweaty on my shoulder. I cast an apologetic glance at the group of people who now surrounded us. Their doe eyes ran over Baby Kat and me, their sympathy evident.

The train burst into the station, a horizontal steel tornado. The force of it growled up through my soles and vibrated into every square inch of my body.

It felt good.

It felt like home.

The brakes screeched on the tracks as the last uptown express of the night slowed to a halt. We had waited for this exact train tonight, since it would pass uninterrupted through multiple stations during its trip through the subterranean darkness towards home.

We were waiting at the near end of the station and the last car on the train finally shuddered to a stop beside us, the doors sliding open with a soft hiss and a beep.

It was empty.

Excellent.

“Is she okay?” one of the group, the red-haired girl, asked as we boarded the car, her emerald eyes sparkling with concern.

“She’ll be fine,” I said. “Just gets scared in the subway - especially at night. She heard some crazy story from a friend of mine and now it’s all she can think about every time we take the train.”

Baby Kat perked up when I said that.

“But daddy, the mole people
are
real!” she protested indignantly, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks from under her pink sunglasses. “I saw them!”

“There, there,” I told her as we shuffled aboard. Everyone took a seat near each other in the back of the car by the door, except for the old Chinese woman. She sat by herself at the other end of the car, a mirthful smile playing about her lips.

The doors slid closed and the train crept out of the station into the tunnel. It grunted and lurched with a labored, oil-choked wheeze, until it finally picked up a full head of speed, eventually settling into a soothingly hypnotic click-clack rhythm.

I peeked at Baby Kat, her head still resting on my shoulder. Within seconds she was fast asleep. I set her down gently in the seat beside me so she could snuggle up more comfortably, my arm wrapped protectively around her.

Her eyes popped open and for a second, she smiled at me before lying back on the seat, her arms crossed over her little chest.

The young people seated around us began to quiet down as we traveled north through the night. I couldn’t make out their conversations over the soft din of the train.

“She asleep?” one of the young men asked, nodding towards Baby Kat.

“Yes, poor thing,” I replied, trying to be friendly. “Riding on the subway knocks her out cold every time - especially this late.”

“You from here?” he asked.

“
New Yawka
my whole my life, born and bred,” I said. “How about you? First time in the city?”

“How’d you know? We’re from Indiana,” he said, gesturing to the brunette beside him. “Came to visit over winter break, you know?” he drawled.

He had a strong, lean physique, but for some reason struck me as the type who’d piss himself in the face of confrontation. He’d probably be good at following orders, though - a real workhorse.

Just the kind of person our world needs.

The guy’s girlfriend whispered something into his ear. Watching from behind dark lenses made it easier to pretend I hadn’t noticed.

The young man nodded in agreement, and then turned back to me.

“Mind if I ask what your little girl was going on about?” he said.

I furrowed my brow, and gave him an uncertain look.

“Back at the station, right before the train pulled in - she said something about ‘the mole people’,” he said. “What was she talking about?”

As soon as he said the words
mole people
, everyone in the train suddenly became interested in our conversation; every eyeball - save for the Chinese lady’s – was fixated on me, anticipating my explanation. The Chinese woman sat there, the smile still on her face, as though laughing at a joke no one else had heard.

“Ah, yes…that,” I replied.

I waited a moment before continuing, taking in the steady
clack-clack-clack
of the steel track that echoed in the darkness as it chased us through the tunnel. I glanced out of the window as we passed through an off-duty station at 96thth Street, a half-dozen empty cars sitting on the switch, like an armada of sunken ships.

I checked my watch. It was 1:50 am.

Four minutes, thirty seconds to go.

I returned my attention to the crowd of eager youngsters that had gathered around me.

“The mole people. It’s an old urban legend,” I said. “People tell stories about a secret world that lies beneath the city, where hundreds, maybe thousands, of down-on-their-luck people have abandoned life on the surface for one below. Supposedly, they live in a Swiss cheese maze of abandoned subway tunnels, dark cathedrals of massive underground government projects that lost funding and shut down before they ever amounted to anything. Some people say the city goes a half-mile down in some spots - room enough for thousands and thousands. Or so they say.”

“Is it true? Do people really live underground?” the man asked, his eyes as wide as spotlights.

“Depends who you ask,” I said. “Jerry Springer got a lot of people believing it, even did a television special back in the nineties where he went down into a tunnel in Central Park with some guy who showed him where he lived. Said hundreds of people had given up on the world and were creating a new life, down here in the tunnels.”

“So it is real?”

“I dunno. Do you believe Jerry Springer?” I asked, smiling coyly.

I noticed the redhead trying hard not to put her three cents in. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore and jumped headfirst into the middle of our conversation.

“No, really - it
is
true,” she said eagerly. “I saw a Geraldo special about it on YouTube, it was really scary. There were people living in boxes, eating garbage like rats,” An earnest tear glistened in the corner of her eye. “It was terrible,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of a delicate hand, smearing dark eyeliner across her pale cheek in the process.

I glanced at my watch again. Three minutes left to go. I tapped Baby Kat’s shoulder.

“You live here, you ever seen anybody coming up out of the tunnels?” the redhead asked me.

“I’ve never seen anybody crawling out of anything, myself,” I said, “but you know - I
have
heard things. Not sure if I believe them, though.”

“Heard things? Like what?” One of the other guys asked, hugging his girlfriend closer.

“Well, I don’t want to spread rumors and scare the tourist business away,” I admit, I was having fun with them. They wanted a good story. “Fine. If you insist,” I said, huffing slightly as though relenting only with great hesitation. They hung on my every word.

I savored that moment – and still do, looking back on it. I knew even then that they, too, would remember that moment for the rest of their lives.

“Some say that there’s more people living underground than anybody knows about – a lot more,” I began. “The rumor is that some of them have been living down here a lot longer than anyone could imagine. Did you know that the very first New York City subway tunnel was dug all the way back in 1869? Most people don’t realize it’s so old. Lots of abandoned lines since then, lots of upgrades,” I said. “Some people I’ve talked to, people who claim to know someone who lived in the tunnels, said that the mole people have created a whole separate society, an underground country of sorts, with its own laws and ways. It’s hard to imagine a scenario like that, sitting here in a modern molded plastic seat on a high-tech subway train, hard to imagine that we might be passing right through the middle of that other world right now – nothing but concrete and dirt separating us.”

“You don’t think it’s true?” the redhead asked, her trust in Geraldo’s integrity clearly diminished now that she had given the matter further thought.

“I doubt it – but I’ve heard stuff that made me wonder,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Well, a couple of weeks ago, a subway train stopped dead on the tracks for no good reason at all,” I said mysteriously. “It was an express train, late at night and the lights went out all of a sudden - both on the train and in the tunnel - then a few seconds later, the train screeched to a halt.”

“What does that have to do with mole people?”

“Well, that’s just the thing. Some folks on the train that night said they saw people outside in the tunnel, moving in the darkness - a whole group of ‘em, lit up by the sparks emitted from the brakes.”

“Mole people?”

I shrugged. “That’s what some of them said the next day. One guy in the last car all by himself swore it was mole people that done it, said they were testing the system. Said they popped open the doors and boarded the car he was riding in. Said they told him they needed fresh bodies to keep their population healthy, get some fresh breeders into their society.”

“If that was true, why didn’t they take him, or any of the other people for that matter? Was there anybody missing?” she asked, skeptical.

“No,” I replied, “and nobody else on the train saw anybody come on board, either - just a few witnesses saying they thought they saw people in the shadows. The news said that the train was stopped for less than sixty seconds before the lights came back on, and that it was able to make it into the next station just fine. The transportation authority never did say what happened exactly, just explained the whole thing away as a ‘mechanical anomaly’.”

The redhead cocked her eyebrow at me. It was clear that she thought I was shoveling bullshit.

“So reports about the mole people are kind of like UFO sightings,” she said. “Lots of people see
something
, but nobody can ever
prove
anything - what about the security cameras on board? Couldn’t they tell from the video if the man who said mole people boarded the train was lying?”

“Funny you mention that,” I said, cocking my head to one side. I’d have to remember her later; she seemed more intelligent than I had first supposed.

“Funny? Why?” she asked.

“Because the article I read mentioned that the on-board security cameras have backup batteries that can run for hours. even in the event of total power failure,” I said.

“So did they see something on the film?” she asked, her green eyes glowing in the fluorescent light.

“No,” I said, trying to appear disenchanted. “They didn’t – or couldn’t, rather. The article said that someone had put a big yellow smiley face sticker over the camera lens and blocked the view. Ironic, don’t you think? That the only camera on the whole train that didn’t work that night was the one on the last car – which coincidentally was the only car anyone claimed had been boarded by mole people.”

“That seems like a pretty big red flag to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if that guy put the sticker there himself.”

Most of the other people in the car had lost interest in our conversation by now and were talking quietly to each other, or playing with their phones. A couple had nodded off, like Baby Kat.

I checked my watch. Twenty seconds remaining.

“Speaking of coincidences,” I said in a low voice, to draw the redhead closer from her seat across the aisle, “did you notice that we happen to be in the last car on this train, too?”

She turned and looked out the back window at the dimly lit track as it receded into the darkness behind us. Her eyes widened.

“That’s not the only similarity,” I continued. “We also happen to be riding in the last car on the same route on the
same
day of the week at the same
exact
time as that other train,” I told her in an icy tone.

A look of alarm crossed over her face for a second, and then she laughed – a bright shiny laughter, a kind of laughter I had not heard for years - and have never heard since, no matter how much I have tried to coax it forth.

“You really had me going there, mister,” she said. “Now what would’ve really scared me is if I would’ve looked at the camera on the ceiling and it was covered up with a…”

She fell silent, her smile falling away as she turned to point at the camera. I followed her gaze.

A big yellow smile looked down upon us.

She turned back to me, speechless.

I took off my sunglasses and showed her my eyes.

I shouldn’t have. The brilliance was painful. I grabbed the steel grip bar beside me as tightly as I could with one hand, and clutched Baby Kat close to me with the other. She was wide awake.

The lights went out. The laughter that I had heard just seconds before from the girl in the seat across from me was replaced with a scream; the same scream that I have heard many times since, so much easier to draw from her than giggles.

In the darkness they waited. I knew as surely as anything I’ve known in my whole life that they had waited and plotted and planned this whole thing, down to the millisecond. Measured response times, practiced backup plans. Even stopped a train -
this train
- once before, just to see if it could be done.

It could.

They had suffered one casualty during the practice run. A piece of equipment in the makeshift track jam had come loose and impaled one of them, but they had accomplished their mission, stopped the train smoothly and gotten on board.

Then they had gotten back off, gathered their equipment and their dead friend and had gone back underground.

No one had ever suspected it was more than an accident, an isolated technical malfunction, except for that one man in the last car of the train.

Me.

I felt the train shudder as its front end caught on the track jam. Strong vibrations from the sudden loss of speed rattled down the entire length of the train, like shivers down a spine, to where we sat.

“Oh my god, what’s happening?” someone yelled, their voice only one of many in an erupting cacophony of distress. The pretty redhead screamed again as she suddenly hurtled towards the front of the car along with all the others.

Despite the sudden force of stopping, I held onto my seat. The
clack-clack
that had droned in the background was gone and I knew that the train had come to a complete stop.