The Hunger (Book 2): Consumed (26 page)

They finally moved down the tunnel again with Cass and Lance in the lead.  Greg and Adam brought up the rear, the flare giving them enough light to walk by.

Wet, sticky muck covered the floor.

Judging from the coppery smell, Lance assumed quite a bit of it was blood, but he didn’t stop to inspect it. The stench of the infected grew stronger with every step.  The air was heavy with it.

Cass stopped a hundred yards in.

Greg ran into her back.  “Sorry.”

“Pay attention!” Lance whispered.  He shoved Greg backward a step before turning to Cass.  “What is it?”

“I... Jesus...”

Even in the semi-dark, Lance could see her throat work.

“What do you see?”  He looked ahead, but couldn’t make out anything because of the limited range of the flare.

“A graveyard,” she whispered.  “
The
graveyard of the entire city.”

“Do you see any movement?  Can I use the flashlight?”

She paused.  “I think it’s clear.”

Lance pulled the trigger on the handle of the spotlight.  The beam reflected off an abandoned subway car fifty feet ahead.  The windows were broken out, the metal exterior dented and mangled.

Dried streaks of blood ran from the back door, disappearing beneath the car.

Bones covered the ground on either side.

Thousands of splintered skeletons, piled more than five feet high, stretched as far as they could see.

Empty skulls stared back at them.

“My God.”  Lance’s mouth fell slack.

Greg vomited behind them.  Their light faded as he dropped the flare to the ground beside him.

Lance popped another one and threw it at the rear of the car.

Adam crossed himself.  The pistol shook in his hand like a leaf in the wind.

The flickering light of the torch animated the shadows of the bones.

Dried blood covered every visible surface.  Shreds of clothing hung from the ends of femurs and collarbones. Discarded wallets and shoes covered the ground near the end of the car.

“All of these people—” Lance gagged on the rankness of the air.  “This is what hell must look like.”

They stared at the remnants of Pittsburgh’s population.

The skeletal remains of a past civilization, devoured by unspeakable horrors.

Lance turned off the spotlight and clipped it to his belt.  He inched forward, rifle jammed against his shoulder, eyes scanning the softly lit area behind the subway car.

There was no movement.

Only death.

Cass came along beside him, her M4 at the ready.  She flipped her goggles up again as they approached the flare.

“This is madness,” she whispered.

“I don’t know why, but I didn’t expect this.”  Lance wondered how none of them had thought of where the remains of those dragged underground would be.

“Neither did I.”

Adam sneaked up behind them, his chest hitching as he hyperventilated.  Greg followed him, his face pale and sweaty.

“We have to go back,” he said.  His voice was too loud and they heard it echo through the tunnel.  “This is crazy!  We can’t—”

Lance clamped his hand over Greg’s mouth, cutting him off.  He leaned forward until their noses were only two inches apart.

“If you speak that loudly again, I’ll—”

A shriek came from behind them.

The distance was impossible to gauge because of the way sound carried in the small pace.

“Damn!  That came from somewhere back there.”  Cass spun around and flipped her goggles back into place.  “I don’t see anything yet.”

Greg tore Lance’s hand from his face.  He whispered, “I’m leaving!  This is too much!”

“Go ahead.”  Lance nodded in the direction they’d come from.  “But it sounds like something is back there.”

“OK, so now what?” Adam asked.  He gestured to the skeletons.  “Considering we’re standing at the precipice of their lair, and there is one behind us, what do we do?  We’re sandwiched in here.”

“We keep going.  We’re here for one reason.”  Cass went to the rear of the subway car and grabbed a low-mounted railing, hauling herself inside the open door.

Greg whined as he stared down at a crushed skull on the ground.  Cass told him to pick up the flare again, which he did begrudgingly.  It was wet and sticky when he held it in his hand.  He whined even more.

Lance handed Cass his rifle and pulled himself into the car.  The duffel bag made it difficult, but he managed. The other two followed behind them.  Greg continued crying softly, sounding more like a kicked dog than a grown man.

More bones sat in the empty seats and on the floor, though they weren’t piled as high as those outside.  Smeared blood and bits of unidentifiable gore clung to the windows and railings.

It reminded Lance of a workbench he’d once seen at a slaughterhouse.

Except this mess didn’t come from an animal.

All the windows had been broken out.  Glass glittered on the floor as they passed by with the flare.

Cass used her night vision again as she led the way.

They reached the far end of the car and paused so she could inspect the next one.

“Clear.”

The doors to both cars were open, allowing quick passage between them.

“How will we know when we’re under the river?” Lance whispered.

“Pedometer.”  Cass tapped a watch on her wrist.  “Another hundred feet or so.”

“Clever girl.”

“Damn right.”

“Humble too.”

Adam’s voice was low behind them.  “Are you guys talking shit to each other?  At a time like this?”

“It’s what we do.”  Lance kept going.  His boots stuck to the floor with each step.  Squishy bits crushed under his heels.

They stopped at the next gap between cars.  Cass checked their progress on the pedometer.

“We’ll go to the end of the next car and that should be it,” she whispered.  “If we climb onto the roof of it, we’ll be able to reach the ceiling.”

“Are you sure we have enough explosives to blow through to the river?” Lance asked.  He wished he’d thought of that question
before
they traipsed through Hell’s asshole.

She held her hands out, palms up.

“What?”  Lance leaned closer.  “Are you serious?”

“What do you want me to say?  This isn’t an exact science.”

“Clever girl, my ass.  I take it back.”

“What are you guys saying?” Greg asked.

“Nothing.”  Lance didn’t want to tell the other two that they might have come down here for nothing.

Cass crossed to the next car and came to abrupt stop again. “Do you hear that?”

Lance listened, cocking his head so his ear angled toward the front.  He was about to say ‘no’ when he heard something.

Something deep and rumbling.

“What the hell is that?”

Cass took a few steps forward and stopped again.  “There’s only one more car to go.  We’ll climb up on it.”

“OK.”

They moved through the car slowly.  More bones were scattered in it, making it difficult to walk in silence.  They had to measure each step, placing their feet carefully.

When they finally reached the end, the odd rumbling had grown louder.

Greg’s breathing had quickened and when Lance looked at him, he wondered if the man might pass out.

“You stay down here,” Lance told him.  “You can hand up our equipment.”

“I can do that, bro.”

Lance glared at him, but didn’t say anything.  If they survived this, he planned on having a discussion about the bro thing.

Cass raised her goggles again as she stood between the cars.  She held her hand out.  “Give me a flare.”

Lance dug one out of his pocket and placed it in her palm.  She sparked the end and tossed it on the roof of their car. The ceiling of the tunnel was only a few feet above it.  They would have to crawl in order to fit.

“What do you want me to do?” Adam asked.  His hands still shook, but they weren’t as bad as before.

“You’re going up with us,” Cass said.

Lance took the duffel bag from his shoulder and carefully placed it on the last row of seats.  He had to move a hipbone out of the way. Bile stung the back of his throat as he lowered the glistening piece to the floor.  It occurred to him that the bones were all fairly clean, as if they’d been washed.

Or licked clean.

The thought made him dizzy.  He shook his head to clear it and unzipped the bag as quietly as he could.

Cass came back in and pulled out blocks of the plastic explosives.  She stacked them on the seat and then pulled out several silver tubes, which looked like thick pens.  The last thing she grabbed from the bag was a small device similar in size and shape to a cell phone.  It had two buttons on the front.

“These are the detonators,” she whispered as she held up the pencil-shaped objects.  “One needs to be put in each stack of explosives.”

“That’s the trigger?” Lance asked.  He pointed at the last piece.

“Yeah.  I’ll keep it with me.”  She grabbed a brick of the explosives and jammed the detonator into it.  “That’s all you do.  Make sure all the blocks in each cluster you put in the ceiling are touching.  One detonator per cluster, got it?”

They all nodded.

“If you see any cracks or holes in the ceiling, work a few bricks into it if you can.  They’re malleable, so you can shove them around.”

Greg scratched his temple.  “Malleable?”

Adam slowly turned his head and glared at Greg.

“What?” Greg asked.

“Stop talking.”

“Sorry, bro.  Just asking a question.”

“
Everyone
shut up.  We need to get this done and get out of here.”  Cass stepped back to the opening between the cars and lifted her leg in the air.  “Give me a boost.”

Lance bent down and laced his fingers together.  He held them down by Cass’ thighs.

She stepped onto his hands and he heaved her up as hard as he could.  Though she was a smaller woman, the fatigue in Lance’s arms made the movement more difficult than normal.

Her legs kicked a few times as she shimmied her way onto the roof.  A moment later, her head appeared over the edge and she pointed at the explosives on the seat.

Lance handed ten blocks and three detonators to her before she disappeared again. Both of their hands were occupied so they couldn’t take the rifles with them. They were left in the car by the duffel bag.

Adam stepped in front of Lance, sweat pouring from his face like a faucet.

“It’ll be all right,” Lance said.  “Just be quick and then come back down.”

“I’m not cut out for this shit, man.”

“You’ve survived this long.  Just hang in there for a few more minutes and it’ll all be over.  Put your stash over the second car.  Cass and I will go over the first.”

Lance cupped his hands again and lifted Adam as high as he could.  The banker, as Lance still thought of him, was much heavier than Cass was.  He could only lift his hands up to waist height.

Adam scrambled the rest of the way before spinning around and reaching down.  Lance handed him the same amount of equipment he’d given Cass.

Greg gave Lance a boost up, though he whined about it.  It took all the willpower Lance could muster not to punch him.  Of all the guys they could have encountered on their way down to the tunnels, it had to be someone like him.

The rumbling sound was louder on the roof.  The air seemed to reverberate with it.

After getting his share of the explosives and detonators, Lance crawled along the metal roof of the lead car.  The flare was on the other car, so it didn’t give him much light to work with.  It was enough though and his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

He saw Cass a few yards ahead, crawling toward the other end.

After a few more feet, he rolled over and slid on his back, eyeing the tile ceiling for cracks or crevices.

His shoulder snagged on a gouge in the metal and he had to bite down against the pain.

Large, deep holes ran from the side of the car to the center of the roof.  Above the gouges was a wide gap in the tiles.  Deep shadows concealed the inside of the space.

He unclipped the spotlight and held it out in front of him, aiming at the hole.  He clicked the trigger and then immediately hit it again, hoping to minimize any risk of exposure to nearby Vladdies.

What he saw made him smile.  The concrete behind the tiles had been chipped away, creating a hole several feet deep.  He examined the gouges in the metal again.

Did one of the Vladdies try to tunnel through?

He wondered if maybe they could hear the river above them and had tried to break through to it.  Perhaps the scratches in the roof of the car came from their claws as they raged against the ceiling.

Carefully, so he wouldn’t drop the explosives, Lance stood up.  The hole was high enough that he could stand fully erect.  He had to reach up another foot above his head to feel the top of the crevice.

Because of the darkness, it took him longer to plant the explosives than he would have liked, but he managed.  All of his blocks went into that one space.  He figured this would be their best shot at blowing a big enough hole to get through to the riverbed above.

He jammed two detonators into the blob he’d molded.  Whether it required one or two, he didn’t know, so he figured he would play it safe.  Another strobe of the spotlight revealed his handiwork—he was content with it.

Cass hadn’t come back yet.

Lance flattened himself to the roof of the car again and looked ahead.

He didn’t see her.  The glow from the flare didn’t extend to the far end of the car.

What’s taking her so long?

Behind him, Adam climbed down between the cars, his mission completed. Cursing under his breath, Lance crawled forward.

Ten feet out, he spotted her explosives.  She’d jammed them in a small fissure in the roof where some tiles had been knocked loose.  A detonator stuck out of the amorphous mound.  He continued along the roof.

Lance still couldn’t see her ahead, but that didn’t mean much.  He couldn’t see
anything
anymore. Judging from how far he’d crawled, he knew he had to be approaching the end of the car.  Before he’d finished the thought, his hand brushed against the rubber tread of a boot.