The Hunger (Book 2): Consumed (27 page)

“Cass?” he whispered.  His fingers traced up the boot and he felt her cargo pants.

“Shh.”

The darkness was complete, encompassing. He couldn’t see her leg even though it was right in front of his face.

Her fingers brushed against his head, fumbling around.  They grabbed hold of his hair and tugged softly.  She wanted him to keep crawling.

Lance inched along, moving to his right so he could come up beside her.  When his shoulder brushed against hers, he stopped.  His fingers fell over the end of the car.

The rumbling sound was louder still.  A slight vibration came from the car underneath him.

Cass grabbed his hand and pressed the night-vision goggles into his palm.

As he raised them to his eyes, she put her hand over his mouth.  He tried to shake his face free, but she pressed her palm against his lips even harder.

“Look through the goggles.”  He felt her warm breath on his cheek.  She was so close that her lips brushed his ear.  “Don’t react to what you see.”

Only the rumbling sound and the thrum of his heartbeat were audible as he pushed the goggles against his face.

Despite Cass’ warning, he moaned against her palm when he saw what lay on the tracks ahead.

Vampires.

Hundreds and hundreds of sleeping vampires.

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T
he goggles shook in Lance’s hand.

He watched the wide, corded chests of the monstrosities rise and fall as they slept.  Their breaths rumbled from their gaping mouths, each one bursting out with incomprehensible force.  The sound reminded him of a snorting bull preparing to charge.

They slept on the ground and tracks, bodies stretching across one another.

Half-eaten limbs and torsos dotted the area, clamped in the distorted claws of the damned.

The air was dank and sour.

The nest of slumbering Vladdies stretched out as far as the goggles allowed Lance to see.

It was an army of hunger and wrath and mutated death.

He wanted to scream, to flee.

He didn’t dare do either.

In traditional vampire lore, the subway tunnels would have acted like one giant coffin.

Cass tugged on his shirt, signaling for him to back up.  She crawled backward beside him, her arms brushing against his side.  He lowered the goggles, focusing on keeping his breathing as silent as possible.

Panic tugged at his thoughts.  There were so
many
.  His composure threatened to slip away.

He’d moved a half a foot away from the edge of the car when he noticed that he could actually
see
it.  The tiled wall beside him had a faint glow reflecting from it as well.

Lance whipped his head around.  Cass’ outline was directly behind him.

Crawling toward them on the other end of the car was Greg.  He held the flare in his hand, raising it close to the ceiling.

Cass turned and waved him back.

He either didn’t understand, or didn’t want to listen, because he kept coming.

“What are you guys doing up there?” he asked.  Though he tried to whisper, his voice carried.

Something shifted in the darkness beyond Lance.

His muscles stiffened.

The movement came again, but more pronounced.  Another followed it.

A dozen more after that.

Lance’s lungs seized as he slowly turned his head toward the end of the car.  He brought the goggles to his eyes again.

Several of the Vladdies stood on all fours in the middle of the tunnel.  They faced them, noses tilted in the air.  Quick, forceful snorts pulled their widened, oozing nostrils in.

One of them tensed and slammed its knuckles into the rail.  It bounded two steps forward and sniffed again.

Lance looked at Cass and waved frantically for her to go.  She nodded and shimmied backward, urgency in her movements.

He turned back, looked through the goggles.

Three more had woken up.  They faced his direction, their eyeless sockets aimed at the back of the car.

“What took you so long?” Greg asked from behind him.

Lance winced.

Did the Vladdies hear him?

One of them roared, its back arching, hands lifting from the ground.  Two others shrieked, filling the entire tunnel with tormented echoes.

The cries woke up the rest of the vampires.  Hundreds of mutations exploded to their feet.  They shoved at each other and slammed their forearms against the walls and ground.

Cass shuffled backward even faster, her eyes wide with fear.

The car shook as the Vladdies raged against the construction of the tunnel, their fury building to a crescendo.  They slammed against each other in confusion and anger. More shrieks came as they turned toward the subway car.  Lance winced against the intense sounds crushing down upon him.

He knew the game was up.  They were at least a half a mile into the tunnel and there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of murderous mutants ready to tear them to pieces.

But that didn’t mean he would go down without a fight.

Lance reached into his cargo pocket and pulled two flashbang grenades out.  His finger curled into the pin of the first one and he pulled.

It didn’t budge.

“Shit,” he muttered.  He yanked at the pin again and it tore free.

“
Run!
” He heaved the grenade as far into the group of Vladdies as he could.

He pulled the pin on the second grenade out before the first had found its mark.

“Lance!  Come on!”  Cass screamed.

If he didn’t do this, he knew none of them would have a chance.  If the vampires were susceptible to light and sound, the flashbangs should do some serious damage.

Or so he hoped.

He lobbed the second grenade, but it slipped from his sweat-covered fingers and bounced off the ceiling by the end of the car.  It disappeared over the edge in front of him.

“Damn!”  He cupped his hands over his ears and rolled into the fetal position.

Squeezed his eyes shut.

The first grenade exploded in the group of Vladdies.  The pitch of their cries spiked several octaves.

Lance braced himself for the second explosion.

It didn’t help.  The bang stunned him, rocking his head like a punch from a boxer.

He opened his eyes and watched as the infected nearest the car writhed on the ground, cradling their heads.  Others, further away, stumbled around blindly, their senses jumbled from the grenades.

Lance crawled away, struggling to keep from falling off the car.  His balance was shit, his arms rubbery and feeling detached.

Cass’ head appeared at the gap between the cars.  She shouted something at him that he couldn’t make out.  A shrill ringing stabbed at his ears, shoving other sounds aside.

She waved him on. He complied as best he could.

When he reached her, she grabbed him around the shoulders and guided him down to the floor.  His weight was too much for her, but she pivoted well, and had him landing on his feet.

Adam and Greg were gone.

Cass’ mouth was moving, but Lance couldn’t get past the ringing.

“What?”  He stuck his pinky fingers in his ears and waggled them around.

She pointed past him, at the end of the car.

Lance turned to see a Vladdie climbing into the open doorway.  Its unnaturally long teeth, yellowed and sharp, glinted from the flickering light of a flare left on the floor.  A gnarled hand clutched at the first row of seats, stained claws tearing into the fabric.

It roared at them, strings of spittle stretching to the floor.

Lance shoved Cass in the other direction and grabbed the spotlight on his belt.  The beam flashed dead center on the Vladdie, illuminating its striated, translucent chest.  Pain-ridden cries filled the car, loud enough for Lance to hear it over the subsiding ringing.

The beast stumbled backward and fell from its perch.

Cass grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around.  She held her rifle in her hands and pointed for Lance to pick his up. He lifted it, and the duffel bag, from the seat.  The bag still held another brick of explosives and a few more clips of ammunition.

They sprinted through the cars.  Lance struggled with his balance, having to grab handles hanging from the ceiling to keep from falling into the aisle.  Bones crunched under their boots.

The floors vibrated as the vampires clambered after them.

Cass reached the end of the row and leapt to the tracks.  She spun around and stuffed her hand into Lance’s cargo pocket as he landed beside her.

He looked behind them and nearly fell over at what he saw.

The entire car was packed with the infected.  They climbed over the seats and fought against each other to get ahead.  They filled the aisle, the doors, and the windows.

Both sides of the tunnel surrounding the car were flooded with twisted flesh and rending claws.  The sight froze Lance.  He stared at the oncoming wave in revulsion and horror.

Cass got a handful of his shirt and pulled him along the tracks.  She yanked the pin of the grenade free, but didn’t throw it until they were twenty yards into the tunnel.  She heaved it behind them without breaking stride.

They covered their ears as the pop behind them sent another wave of tortured shrieks through the enclosed area.

The glow of a flare further down the tracks caught Lance’s attention as they rounded a corner.  Adam and Greg were ahead, running down the center of the tunnel.  Adam shouted something over his shoulder that was drowned by the enormous racket behind them.

The ringing in Lance’s ears dissipated, only to be replaced by the rages of the vampires.

“Faster!” Cass yelled.

“I’m trying!”

The beam from Lance’s spotlight danced along the floor and walls as he pumped his arms.  His legs and shoulder burned from carrying the heavy duffel bag earlier.

A gunshot barked.  Adam and Greg had stopped, with the dancer cowering by the right wall, holding the flare in front of him.  Adam stood with his feet apart, the pistol held at chest height.

He fired again, the .44 bucking in his hands.

Lance angled his spotlight further ahead, giving Adam a better of view of his target.  Cass raised her rifle her to her shoulder as they stopped beside him.

A Vladdie burst from the shadows, running on two legs.  Its left arm hung by its side, hitching with each stride.  Blood poured from a hole in its shoulder.

Cass unleashed a torrent of bullets, punching holes into its chest and neck.  It crashed face-first, sliding in the dirt and rocks, death spasms jerking through its body.

Lance wheeled around.  He fired blindly into the tunnel behind him.  Though he couldn’t see any of the nightmares chasing them, he knew the subway was packed from wall to wall.

He fired until the rifle clicked.

Pulled two clips out, tossing one to Cass.

They reloaded on the run.

Greg brought up the rear, his shoulders hitching with whimpers.  Adam’s face had gone a ghostly pale, but he matched their pace and kept his pistol ready.

Lance lobbed his last flashbang without aiming.  He shouted for everyone to cover their ears just before it exploded.

After another hundred yards, he popped a flare and dropped it to the ground, hoping the light would slow their pursuers, if only for a few seconds.

The commotion behind them grew louder with each passing second.  Lance thought he could feel the force of their collective breaths when he spotted a faint light ahead.

“That’s the station,” Cass shouted.  Somehow, she pushed on even faster.

Lance tried to keep up, but his failing legs refused to cooperate.  He didn’t dare look over his shoulder, afraid his resolve would evaporate if he saw how close the horde was.

Cass reached the landing and jumped, tucking her shoulder against the edge.  The bow and quiver slipped from her arm, falling to the tracks. She rolled onto the platform with ease, popping to her feet, the gun already in firing position.

Muzzle flares illuminated her scowling face as she fired into the tunnel.  Lance climbed up and turned back, giving Adam and Greg a hand.

Cass ran out of ammo and cursed, glaring through the smoke trailing from the barrel.  She tossed the gun aside and pulled the trigger for the explosives from her pocket.

“Get up the stairs!”  She pressed the first button, then let her thumb hover over the second.

Adam and Greg ran by, dodging around the garbage can they’d set on fire earlier.

A Vladdie leapt from the darkness of the tunnel, landing on the platform in front of Cass.

Lance dropped his spotlight and lifted his rifle.

It lunged at Cass, arms wide, fangs dripping.

Without enough time to properly aim, Lance fired from the hip.

His first volley missed, sending chips of tile crumbling to the floor.

The next three rounds found their mark, twisting the vampire in midair.  Its bulk crashed against Cass, knocking her to the floor.  She cried out as the trigger fell from her grasp, sliding under a nearby bench.

The vampire landed beside her, flopping around as it tried to grab her legs.  It bled from its arms and chest, leaving dark streaks on the floor as it dragged itself after her.  Lance fired again and again, shouting as he filled the muscle-bound abomination with hot lead.

Cass scrabbled backward on her hands and feet.  She flopped to her stomach and dove for the trigger.

Her fingers wrapped around it as she slid into the bench with a thud.

Lance emptied his clip into the Vladdie.  “Die, damn you!”

Another vampire burst from the shadows and slid across the floor of the platform.

Lance threw his rifle at it.  The stock bounced off its rippled chest like a toothpick.

He grabbed the spotlight and aimed the beam at it.

It cried out, throwing its arms up in an attempt to ward off the harsh rays.  Its skin darkened and blistered under the spotlight.  With a shriek of agony, it leapt from the platform, disappearing by the tracks.

Lance angled the beam at the mouth of the tunnel.  What he witnessed almost made him fall over.

The horde was upon them.  It surged out of the tube, bursting into the station.