Swan Song (18 page)

Twenty - [Land of the Dead]

“Lady,” Jack Tomachek said, “if you think we can get through that, you belong in Bellevue.”

Sister didn’t reply. A bitter wind was blowing in her face off the Hudson River, and she narrowed her eyes against stinging needles of ice that were whirling down from the black clouds above them, stretching from horizon to horizon like a funeral shroud. Sickly yellow rays of sunlight found holes in the clouds and moved like search lamps from a grade-B prison escape movie, then were extinguished when the holes closed. The river itself was turbid with corpses, floating trash and the hulks of burned boats and barges, all moving sluggishly southward to the Atlantic. Across the frightful river, the oil refinery fires were still blazing, and thick black smoke swirled in a maelstrom over the Jersey shore.

Behind her stood Artie, Beth Phelps and the Spanish woman, all of them wrapped up in layers of curtains and coats to ward off the wind. The Spanish woman had cried most of the night, but her eyes were dry now; all her crying was done.

Below the ridge they stood on was the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. It was jammed with vehicles whose gas tanks had exploded, but that wasn’t the worst of it; the worst, Sister saw, was that the remains of those cars were about wheel-rim-deep in dirty Hudson River water. Somewhere inside that long and dark tunnel the ceiling had ruptured, and the river was streaming in-not enough, yet, to collapse it like the Lincoln Tunnel, but enough to make the passage a dangerous slog through a swamp of burned cars, bodies and God only knew what else.

“I’m not up to swimming,” Jack said. “Or drowning. If that bastard fell in on our heads, we could kiss our asses goodbye.”

“Okay, what’s a better suggestion?”

“We go east, to the Brooklyn Bridge. Or we go across the Manhattan Bridge. Anything but in there.”

Sister pondered that for a moment. She held her leather bag close to her side, and within it she could feel the outline of the glass circle. Sometime during the long night she’d had a dream of the thing with the burning hand, stalking through the smoke and ruins, its eyes searching for her. She feared that thing more than the half-flooded tunnel. “What if the bridges are gone?”

“Huh?”

“What if both those bridges are gone?” she repeated calmly. “Look around and tell me if you think those spindly bridges could survive what blew down the World Trade Center and the Empire State Building.”

“They might have. We won’t know unless we see.”

“And that’ll be another day gone. By that time, the tunnel might be completely flooded. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t mind getting my feet wet.”

“Uh-uh.” Jack shook his head. “No way I’m going in there, lady! And you’re nuts if you do. Listen, why do you want to leave Manhattan, anyway? We can find food here, and we can go back to the basement! We don’t have to leave!”

“You might not,” Sister agreed. “I do. There’s nothing here.”

“I’m going with you,” Artie said. “I’m not afraid.”

“Who said I was afraid?” Jack countered. “I’m not afraid! I’m just not fucking crazy, is all!”

“Beth?” Sister turned her attention to the young woman. “What about you? Are you going with us or not?”

She stared fearfully at the clogged tunnel entrance, and finally she replied, “Yes. I’m going with you.”

Sister touched the Spanish woman’s arm, pointed down at the Holland Tunnel and made a walking gesture with two fingers. The other woman was still too shocked to respond. “We’ll have to stay close together,” Sister told Beth and Artie. “I don’t know how deep the water’ll be in there. I think we should link hands and go through so nobody gets lost. Okay?”

Both of them nodded. Jack snorted. “You’re crazy! All of you are out of your minds!”

Sister, Beth and Artie started down the ridge toward the tunnel entrance. The Spanish woman followed. Jack shouted, “You’ll never make it through there, lady!” But the others didn’t pause or look back, and after another moment Jack came down the ridge behind them.

Sister stopped in chilly water up to her ankles. “Let me have your lighter, Beth,” she said. Beth gave it to her, but she didn’t spark it yet. She took Beth’s hand, and Beth grasped Artie’s, and Artie held onto the Spanish woman’s hand. Jack Tomachek completed the chain.

“Okay.” She heard fear in her voice, and she knew she had to take the next step before her nerve broke. “Let’s go.” She started walking around the hulks of vehicles into the Holland Tunnel, and the water crept up to her knees. Dead rats bobbed in it like corks.

Less than ten feet into the tunnel, the water had risen to her thighs. She flicked the lighter, and its meager flame popped up. The light revealed a nightmarish phantasmagoria of tangled metal before them-cars, trucks and taxis torn into half-submerged, otherworldly shapes. The tunnel walls were scorched black and seemed to swallow up the light instead of reflecting it. Sister knew there must have been an ungodly inferno in here when all the gas tanks blew. In the distance, far ahead, she heard the echoing noise of a waterfall.

She pulled the human chain onward. Things floated around her that she avoided looking at. Beth gave a little gasp of terror. “Keep going,” Sister told her. “Don’t look around, keep going.”

The water crawled up her thighs.

“I stepped on something!” Beth cried out. “Oh, Jesus… there’s something under my foot!”

Sister squeezed her hand tightly and guided her on. The water had reached Sister’s waist by the time she’d taken another half dozen steps. She looked over her shoulder at the entrance, now about sixty feet behind them, its murky light pulling at her. But she returned her attention to what lay ahead, and immediately her heart stuttered. The lighter’s flame glinted off a huge, mangled knot of metal that almost completely blocked the tunnel-a pile of what used to be cars, melded together by the heat. Sister found a narrow space to slip around, her feet sliding on something slick at the bottom. Now rivulets of water were falling from above, and Sister concentrated on keeping the lighter dry. The waterfall’s noise still lay ahead.

“It’s about to cave in!” Jack shouted. “God… it’s gonna fall in on us!”

“Keep going!” Sister yelled at him. “Don’t stop!”

Ahead of them, except for the small glow of the flame, was total, unfathomable darkness. What if it’s blocked up? she thought, and she felt the scurryings of panic. What if we can’t make it? Settle down, settle down. One step at a time. One step.

The water reached her waist and continued to climb.

“Listen!” Beth said suddenly, and she stopped. Artie bumped into her and almost slipped into the foul water.

Sister could hear nothing but the increased rumble of the waterfall. She started to pull Beth on-and then there was a deep groaning noise from above them. We’re in the belly of the beast, Sister thought. Like Jonah, being swallowed alive.

Something splashed into the water in front of her. Other falling objects banged loudly off the wreckage, like the noise of sledgehammers at work.

Chunks of stone, Sister realized. Dear God-the ceiling’s about to collapse!

“It’s falling!” Jack shouted, about to choke on terror. Sister heard him thrashing through the water, and she knew his nerve had given out. She looked back and could see him struggling wildly the way they’d come. He slipped into the water, came up sobbing. “I don’t wanna die!” he screamed. “I don’t wanna die!” And the sound of his screaming trailed away after him.

“Don’t anybody move!” Sister commanded before the others fled, too. Stones were still falling all around, and she clasped Beth’s hand so hard her knuckles popped. The chain trembled, but it held. Finally, the stones ceased to fall, and the groaning noise stopped, too. “Everybody okay? Beth? Artie, is the woman all right?”

“Yeah,” he answered shakily. “I think I’ve shit in my pants, though.”

“Shit I can deal with. Panic I can’t. Do we go on or not?”

Beth’s eyes were glassy. She’s checked out, Sister thought. Maybe that was for the best. “Artie? You ready?” she asked, and all Artie could do was grunt.

They slogged onward, through water that rose toward their shoulders. Still there was no light ahead, no sign of a way out. Sister winced as a piece of stone the size of a manhole cover slammed into a wrecked truck about ten feet away. The noise of the waterfall was nearer, and over their heads the tunnel groaned with the strain of holding back the Hudson River. She heard a fault voice from behind them: “Come back! Please come back!” She wished Jack Tomachek well, and then the waterfall’s roar drowned him out.

Her bag was full of water, her clothes pulling heavily at her, but she kept the lighter extended over her head. It was uncomfortably hot in her hand, though she dared not flick the flame off. Sister could see her breath pluming out into the light, the water numbing her legs and stiffening her knees. One more step, she resolved. Then the next. Keep going!

They passed another surrealistic heap of melded vehicles, and the Spanish woman cried out in pain as an edge of underwater metal gashed her leg, but she gritted her teeth and didn’t falter. A little further on, Artie’s feet got tangled up in something and he went down, coming up sputtering and coughing, but he was okay.

And then the tunnel curved, and Sister said, “Stop.”

Before them, glittering in the feeble light, was a torrent of water pouring from above, stretching the width of the tunnel. They would have to pass through the downpour, and Sister knew what that meant. “I’m going to have to put the lighter out now, until we get past,” she said. “Everybody hold on tight. Ready?”

She felt Beth squeeze her hand, and Artie croaked, “Ready.”

Sister closed the lighter’s lid. The darkness consumed all. Sister’s heart was pounding, and she gripped the lighter protectively in her fist and started forward.

The water hit her so hard it knocked her under. She lost Beth’s hand and heard the young woman scream. Frantically, Sister tried to get her footing, but there was something slick and oozy all over the bottom. Water was in her mouth and eyes, she couldn’t draw a breath and the darkness distorted her sense of direction. Her left foot was trapped and held by an underwater object, and a shriek was very close, but she knew that if she let it go they were all lost. She flailed around with her free hand, trying to hold the lighter up with the other-and fingers gripped her shoulder. “I’ve got you!” Beth shouted, her own body being battered by the waterfall. She steadied Sister, who wrenched her leg free with an effort that almost tore the sneaker off her foot. Then she was loose and moving again, guiding the others away from the snag.

She didn’t know how long it took them to clear the waterfall-maybe two minutes, maybe three-but suddenly they were past it, and she wasn’t gasping for air anymore. Her skull and shoulders felt as bruised as if she’d been used as a punching bag. She shouted, “We made it!” and led them a distance away before her side bumped metal. Then she took the lighter in her fingers again and tried to strike it.

A spark leaped, but there was no flame.

Oh, Jesus! Sister thought. She tried it again. Another star of sparks-but no flame, and no light.

“Come on, come on!” she breathed. The third time was no charm. “Light, damn you!” But it wouldn’t, not on the fourth or fifth attempts, and she prayed that the lighter hadn’t gotten too wet to catch.

On the eighth try a small, weak flame appeared, wavered and almost died again. Fluid’s almost gone, Sister realized. They had to get out of here before it was used up, she thought, and before that instant she’d never known how sanity could depend on a tiny, flickering flame.

Beside her, the crumpled radiator grille and hood of a Cadillac protruded from the water like an alligator’s snout. In front of her, another car lay on its roof, all but submerged, the tires shredded from its wheels. They were amid a maze of wreckage, their circle of light cut to a fraction of what it had been before. Sister’s teeth had begun to chatter, her legs like cold chunks of lead.

They went on, step by careful step. The tunnel groaned above them again, and more rubble tumbled down-but suddenly Sister realized that the water was back down to her waist.

“We’re coming out!” she shouted. “Thank God, we’re coming out!” She strained to see light ahead, but the exit wasn’t yet in sight. Don’t stop! You’re almost there!

She stumbled over something on the bottom.

A gurgle of bubbles exploded in her face, and from the water in front of her rose a corpse, blackened and gnarled like a piece of wood, its arms frozen stiffly over its face, its mouth straining in a soundless scream.

The lighter went out.

The corpse leaned against Sister’s shoulder in the dark. She stood motionlessly, her heart about to burst through her chest, and she knew she could either lose her mind in that moment or…

She took a shuddering breath and pushed the thing aside with her forearm. The corpse slid under again with a noise like a giggle.

“I’m going to get us out of here,” she heard herself vow, and in her voice there was a dogged strength she hadn’t known she possessed. “Fuck the dark! We’re getting out!” She took the next step, and the next one after that. Slowly, the water descended to their knees. And-how much later and how many steps further Sister didn’t know-she saw the Holland Tunnel’s exit before them. They had reached the Jersey shore.