The Romero Strain (9 page)

“There’s no use hiding in the shadows,” I said, in between my stroking and praising Max. I shined my flashlight against the tunnel wall to reveal a partly exposed, masculine arm protruding from a small recess behind the inner butt-joints where the tunnel had been fitted and riveted together.

“Is it one of those zombies?” Julie asked.

“I don’t think zombies cower,” I told her. “And Max isn’t freaking out.”

Marisol held her pistol in both hands. “Maybe he’s dead,” she commented, as she kept an eye toward the wall.

“Don’t blink,” I told her, knowing she wouldn’t get the reference. I addressed the living statue. “Come out or I’ll send my dog in.
Gib laut,
Max.
Gib laut.”

Max barked, but the man remained motionless.

I scanned my flashlight along the tunnel floor for some debris to throw.

Whoever was hiding in the dark recesses was not a reanimated corpse. I could have sent him in to flush out whoever was cringing in the tunnel niche, but where was the fun in that?

I picked up a piece of concrete that had broken away from the tunnel. I threw it hard. It struck the pillar with a ping, just inches from his shoulder. Whoever it was flinched slightly, and abruptly sprung from the darkness and charged while letting out an intense
ooh-rah
.

Max bolted at him and knocked him down to the tracks. He tore at the man’s shirt. I grabbed his leash and ordered,
“Aus,”
as I gave the leash a pull.
“Ruhig. Sitz.”
Max fell silent and sat.

Marisol and I stood above the man with our pistols ready, just in case he wasn’t human. He turned over and gave us a dazed look. He held his hands in front of his face to block the light from the flashlights David and Julie were shining on him. The palms of his hands were scraped and dirtied. His shirt, emblazoned with a New York City Department of Transportation logo, was badly soiled and his chin was abraded. A small patch of blood pooled on his chin. He had the look of a man who was acting brave, but trying to cover his cowardice.

“Go ahead and shoot. I’m unarmed,” he defiantly said, half daring me to pull the trigger.

“Ooh-rah,” I said. “What the fuck was that?”

“If you’re going to shoot, shoot.”

“Dude, it’s okay,” David assured him, as he turned off his spot and turned on the lantern. “We weren’t sure what you were.”

He still held up his hands. He looked up at me. He was a stocky man in his thirties with short blonde hair cut military style. His tight fitting work shirt revealed a muscular build.

“What?” he asked, as he slowly and hesitantly lowered his arms.

“You can get up,” I told him, as I lowered my pistol.

The man stood and stared at us, not making a sound. I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for an opportunity to charge me again, make a run for it, or if he was just pissed because I messed with him.

“Listen, buddy—”

“Joseph.”

“What?”

“It’s Joseph. Joseph Joshua Daniel Young, not buddy,” he said, with a hint of pompous conceit in his voice.

“Okay,
Joe
. Two middle names, huh?”

“Joshua Daniel was my grandfather’s name. My friends call me J.J. You’re not one of them.”

“Good for me,” I said, scanning my flashlight over his body. “You get bit?”

“Bit?” He examined the area where Max had torn his shirtsleeve. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m not talking about my dog.”

“What?”

“You know what’s going on topside?” David asked.

“I don’t follow. How did you get down here?”

I answered. “Hey, knucklehead. How about you shut up and listen. There’s a shit-storm going on above and you don’t seem to have a clue.”

“You mean the riot?” He said, and backed away from us. “You’re not part of the mob that attacked us, are you?”

“Us?”

“My colleagues and I.”

“That’s not good,” Marisol said.

“Max.
Pass Op!”
I commanded, pointing in the direction he should watch. He trotted down the tunnel a dozen feet and stopped. He sat silently as he watched.

“They didn’t follow me,” Joe told us.

“Why were you hiding?” Julie asked.

“You never know what direction your enemy may come from.”

“You leave a flashlight on so they can find you?” I responded snidely.

He did not answer.

I followed with, “Scared shitless, were you?”

“I wasn’t afraid. I was being evasive.”

“
Evasive?
” I said, with ridicule in my tone. “Yeah, good job. You get your training from Saddam?”

“I got my training from the United Stated Marine Corps!” he proudly boosted.

“Okay, G.I. Joe. You still got captured. Consider this an interrogation and skip the name, rank and serial number crap.”

“It’s
service
number,” he quickly responded, making sure I was aware of my mistake.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“You don’t have any clue at all, do you?” David interjected.

“Clue to what? Four trespassers?”

My head was throbbing. I turned to David and told him to handle it, because I was tired of talking to jackasses. Joe reminded me of Jack, and was beginning to compound the throbbing headache that pounded at my temples.

“It’s not a riot. It’s a plague or something causing people to kill one another,” David explained. “They’re eating their victims.”

“Yeah, right,” he responded, with condescending disbelief in his voice. “Like what? Zombies? Are you all insane?”

“Here we go!
Yes
, zombies… walkers, the living dead, the undead, whatever you want to call them.”

“C’mon,
zombies!?”

“Shut the fuck up,” I yelled at him. “And listen, ’cause the last person to disbelieve me ended up being hamburger… and I got bit!”

“So… what? You going to turn into a zombie, now?” he mocked.

Joe was another Jack, admonishing and ridiculing what we were telling him.

“Listen, jackwagon! I don’t need another bane of my existence.”

Joe looked at me dumbstruck; the big word obviously confused him.

“Ahh, what?”

“How about little words? I don’t need another irritant in my life. Got that?”

“You’re a real asshole,” Joe sneered at me.

“Thank you. And I’m outta here. The rest of you coming?”

I walked away and Marisol followed. Julie stood next to David. The Amtrak tunnel carried their conversation clearly.

“Listen. J.D.’s a little pissed off. He’s had a bad day,” I heard David say, as I approached Max.

“Like, I haven’t? I was chased by some maniacs, my co-workers. Uh, then I get threatened. I think—”

“I think you should come with us.” Julie interrupted, trying to hurry the conversation along, seeing I had started down the tunnel.

“Yeah, you should,” David confirmed.

By the time they finished their conversation and caught up, David was able to extract some details from Joe as to who he was, what he was doing in the tunnel, and what happened to his associates.

David told me later that Joe had once served as a Private First Class in the Marine Corps’ 4
th
Combat Engineer Battalion during Operation Desert Storm as an engineer surveyor. Joe was a civil engineer for New York City’s Department of Transportation. He was leading a team of newly assigned inspectors on a tour of the emergency escape exits in the Amtrak tunnel near Herald Square. City engineers routinely inspected the City’s transportation infrastructure, including tunnels and bridges. They also ensured that construction projects by any corporation, such as the MTA, Amtrak, or conEdison, was in compliance with maintaining the structural integrity of their tunnels and exits.

When he and his colleagues had heard screams of terror and saw the public running for their lives, they thought it best to get out of sight and away from the attackers by fleeing through the exit they were about to inspect. Without realizing it, in their haste to avoid being attacked, they left the access panels open to the street. Joe, being the supervising engineer, had the master key to the access door at the bottom of the stairway and had been the first to make a rushed retreat. I was tempted to question Joe on his Marine Corps ethics and honor about not leaving anyone behind, the soldier’s creed and all, but I let it go. Confrontation would just lead to more confrontation and elevated blood pressure, including a worse headache.

David was the only one in his party who made it to safety, which was no surprise to me. When Joe heard his two fellow workers screaming he ran, closed the door behind him, and had been sitting in the tunnel ever since. Having seen our flashlights, he thought more attackers might have gained access, since he knew there were no other DOT inspectors assigned to the tunnel section from Pennsylvania Station to First Avenue.

For a Marine, he did a lot of retreating.

Joe argued about going back in the direction that he had just come, enough so that I wanted to bitch-slap him and say,
Then go, so I don’t have to listen to your pissing and moaning anymore!
But I didn’t. I held my tongue. I let David deal with him. They were both civil engineers; maybe they would bond and leave me to my thoughts. I needed to find the way out.

Even with all of Joe’s complaining, he still followed. I tried to find a tranquil space inside my mind to retreat from his incessant bitching, but as hard as I tried, I was unable to concentrate. Finally I snapped, again.

“Would you shut up!? I can’t think with your mouth going. Make yourself useful and tell me where that old PRR construction entrance is so we can get out of here.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not? You know where it is, right?”

“Maybe. But I’m still not going to tell you.”

I was growing less and less tolerant of him with every word he uttered. “Cut the bullshit and tell us where we need to go to get to Grand Central,” I demanded.

“No. I signed a confidentiality agreement with the City not to reveal anything about the City’s infrastructure.”

“Then get the hell outta my sight before I
really
decide to shoot you!”

I walked away from him, searching for a passage or doorway that would lead me to the Lexington Avenue Line. There had to be a passage somewhere, since we were at Park Avenue South.

I rode this line quite often and knew its history.

The IRT was the first subway company in New York City
. The East Side of Manhattan was comprised of portions of several different subway construction contracts. Construction of our part of the system began in 1900 and opened in 1904. Two deep rock subway tunnels from 33
rd
Street to 41
st
Street, nearly a half-mile in length, had also been constructed. Grand Central Station opened in 1918 and was the first station along the line from Brooklyn Bridge.

Since we had traveled west along the most northern tunnel, the exit should be on the northern wall. The cross passage doorways, located every fifty feet between tunnel tubes, were plainly evident though the doors probably hadn’t been used since the beginning of the century. I just hoped the construction entrance through the subway system was not an urban legend.

I was exhausted and my head was beginning to truly pound. Marisol noticed my distress.

“Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“Just a headache. Just need some ibuprofen,” I tried to assure her, as I took off my pack. “You and Max go ahead, but not too far.” I handed her Max’s leash.

I took my medication, took a few deep breaths, and pressed forward. When I caught up to Marisol, she was looking at an old entry. It wasn’t an urban myth after all.

The door was caked in filth. It looked as if it hadn’t been used since the early 1900s. It was not a polished stainless steel door. It was not even a hinged entry. It was like the crossover doors, an old rolling steel door, reminiscent of those found on railroad boxcars, painted brown and showing signs of significant age. The rollers and guides that had once helped glide the door open were rusted and corroded. There was rust rot along the edges of the door, especially along the bottom. But it had to be the correct door, for the dirty tunnel wall plaque read
33
rd
Street Exit
. And a grime covered aluminum sign attached to the door at eye level read
Emergency Evacuation Exit. Authorized Personnel Only
. What truly thrilled me was the inscription toward the bottom of the door:
Messrs. Arthur McMullen and Olaf Hoff MCMVI.
I was looking at a piece of history that most New Yorkers’ probably never knew existed. As I started to brush filth off the lettering, I smiled and said, “1906.”

“1906?” Marisol questioned.

“The year the door was made,” I informed her. “This is something few people will ever see. A true piece of New York history.”