Darkbound 2014.06.12 Read online

  "Ung-ung-ung."

  Freddy reached out. And the flesh of his fingerless hand began to peel away, to shear off in long strips like he was being flayed by some unseen knife.

  Jim started to scream. Adolfa shrieked as well. Xavier began muttering every curse word Jim had ever heard of and a few he had never known existed. Only Olik and Karen were silent.

  The flesh peeled from Freddy's hands. When it got to the hem of his trench coat, the coat itself fell to pieces, revealing a man wearing a Green Lantern shirt and a pair of Bermuda shorts that were far too bright for comfort. Jim's stomach roiled at that for some reason. He was still screaming. So loud that he couldn't hear the noise Freddy – or anyone else – was making.

  Freddy's shorts and shirt fell to pieces as well. He was wearing only ratty briefs underneath, stained and dirty-looking. Then those, too, were gone and he was nude.

  And still the flesh pulled from his bones. Skin first, leaving glistening red muscle. Then the muscle itself. And not just hands anymore. Arms, feet, legs. Freddy's genitals were ripped off him in a spray of blood –

  (how's he alive how's he alive he's bleeding everywhere so how is he alive let him die someone please just let him die let him die!)

  – and then the only skin on his body was that on his face and head.

  Jim couldn't keep screaming. He stopped, and a strange numbness crept over him.

  This isn't real. It can't be. Things like this don't happen to people.

  Then there was a deep shredding noise. Freddy, still screaming his tongueless scream, jerked. The skin of his body, like everything else, had disappeared, and now the muscles of his calves and forearms tore free of the bones.

  Here to there, and the muscles and tendons and ligaments were gone. Bare white-yellow bone and cartilage was all that remained.

  And still – impossibly – Freddy screamed.

  The muscle and flesh of his upper legs and upper arms came next. Freddy fell to the floor, laying in a pool of blood and the soaked remains of his clothing. His head was still tilted up to look at his fellow passengers, his forever-open eyes staring at them pleadingly.

  The flesh pulled off his trunk, baring ribs and organs. The organs of his lower trunk spilled out, intestines and kidneys and liver sliding across metal…

  … and then no longer here, but there, and gone.

  Freddy was still screaming. Still screaming even when his heart was pulled from his ribcage, still screaming even when his lungs were yanked free.

  "How is this?" said Karen. She sounded strangely like a little girl, no longer the high-powered lawyer but instead a young child who has found out that the monsters are not in her closet but instead rule the world.

  No one answered her.

  There was one final crackling noise. The entirety of Freddy's skeleton seemed to implode, as though caught in an invisible trash compactor. His head, too, started to warp and distort.

  But he still screamed. His eyes still stared. Still pleaded for help. For mercy. For anything.

  For anything.

  But there was no help to be had, no mercy to be given. Jim watched like everyone else as Freddy the Perv's head was compressed to half its normal size. The eyes bulged, the brains started to press out of every orifice.

  The head was a quarter-size, then one-eighth. Then gone. Gone, but still Freddy screamed. Somehow he screamed.

  And the subway continued on.

  5 FARES

  Maddie was digging in the backyard yesterday. Well… in the tiny space we call a backyard. I should have been mad – she dug up one of the begonias I just bought.

  Before I said anything she explained she was going to plant a tree and we needed a tree because she and Mommy had decided to live in a treehouse someday like the Swiss Family Robinson.

  I got Carolyn and we all put on gloves and helped her dig. We'll buy a tree later today. It will die, but that's not important. She'll have her tree for a while.

  ONE

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  The screaming finally stopped. At least, Jim was fairly certain that it did… but he couldn't be absolutely sure. Because he kept hearing it. Kept hearing phantom echoes of the sound in his mind. Kept hearing Freddy shriek "They're touching me" and then dissolve into a pool of blood and cloth and nothing.

  He could tell the others felt like that, too. That they wanted someone to reassure them that what they had just witnessed had never really happened; that it was in their imagination, and that they could find comfort in the knowledge that they were merely insane.

  But no one could offer that encouragement, Jim knew. Because if one of them was mad, then they all were. They were all in this thing together, they were all here experiencing this, and no one could say, "No, don't worry, I didn't see a thing."

  After the screaming stopped bouncing off the plastic-and-metal walls of the subway car, no one moved for a long time. Even Xavier, who seemed compelled to express himself at all times – either with profanity or with his knife – was utterly silent. Each person who remained standing sank to the closest seat, as though taking comfort in the hard embrace of the poorly molded plastic.

  Surprisingly, Adolfa was the first one to move. She squeezed Jim's arm and then got up, moving around the car. She tried the side doors, but only half-heartedly. Jim understood that: even if they did open, what would she do, jump out? The whine of the motor had continued to grow higher and higher. The lights outside were skipping by so fast they looked like lasers, continuous neon blurs that Doppler-shifted from color to color as they passed.

  After pulling on the doors Adolfa wandered, apparently without goal or intent, before stopping in front of one of one of the windows. She looked at the various advertisements and public service announcements and bits of graffiti that coated most of the free surfaces on the car before finally settling before one of the maps on the walls that showed the train route. She stared at the bright colors, the circles and squares and numbers and letters as though they might hold some key to what was happening to them.

  Olik moved next. He shifted to sit next to Xavier, and started murmuring into the other man's ear. Xavier didn't seem to hear him at first, but after a moment he began to nod. Then they moved to the front of the car and continued to converse in whispered tones, looking back at the others from time to time. Jim worried about that. He also knew there wasn't a damn thing he could do about whatever they were planning: he was just a normal guy, just a person hoping to get back to the two people who mattered most to him. Not a superhero or a Navy SEAL or someone with any hope of taking on two well-armed and clearly dangerous men.

  And Karen… Karen stared straight ahead. Her eyes followed the flashing lights that streaked past the windows, but nothing else on her body moved. She seemed to be withdrawing into herself, and Jim thought it very likely she would be completely catatonic before much longer. And though it was tempting – extremely tempting – to just leave her alone and let her take care of herself, he finally slid across the subway car until he was sitting beside her.

  "You okay?" he said.

  "Why do you care?" Her voice was still deep, still sexy, but under it he could detect a jagged edge of madness, a cliff's edge that she was dancing far too close to. Or perhaps not dancing, but leaning over. Contemplating a leap that would end some unknown pain by casting her beyond reason's grasp, beyond the clutches of sanity or rational understanding. And he understood that: where there is no sanity, there can be no pain. It is only the sane who can truly suffer.

  "That's an honest question," he said with a chuckle. "Aside from the milk of human kindness that runs thick through my veins?" Karen looked at him. Her expression clearly showed where she thought people could put their milk of human kindness, and how long they could leave it there. Jim tried to chuckle again, but it turned into a cough. His throat was dry. He suddenly wondered what was going to happen if people started getting hungry and thirsty.

  If we survive long enough to get
hungry and thirsty.

  "Okay," he said, "how about I care because if you go nuts that's one more thing I have to worry about in here?"

  She snorted. Then looked at him. It was a frank, appraising look of the sort he was unused to. People in modern society were taught to hide themselves. Honesty is the best policy, except when actually communicating with people. Then be oblique. Be opaque. Lie a bit, because the truth is far too frightening to share in polite company.

  That was part of what he loved about Carolyn. She was a no-b.s. kind of gal. And it looked like Karen was cut from that cloth. Again he realized how beautiful she was. Crimson still stained her hands, still dyed the sleeves of her outfit, but she had wiped away most of the blood from her nose where Olik had punched her. And she was gorgeous.

  "You're a good man," Karen said abruptly.

  Like her stare, the directness of her statement caught Jim somewhat off guard. "What makes you so sure?" he said. It was the only thing that came to mind, but it was also a good thing, because he realized that it was the kind of question that would get the woman talking, get her out of the funk she had been in danger of slipping into.

  Karen shrugged. Her stained fingers tightened again on her satchel. "Part of my job."

  "Lawyer?" he said.

  "Acquisitions," she said with a tight smile. "I have to know people." That frank look returned, like a jeweler looking at a gem for possible purchase. "And you're a good man."

  He shrugged. "I try."

  "I like good people. They're predictable."

  Again her statement caught him off-guard. "So are bad people."

  She nodded. "I like them, too."

  "Just not people in the middle?"

  Another nod. "Something like that."

  "You going to be all right?"

  She looked toward the back of the car. The violet smears and crimson-soaked bits of cloth that were all that was left of Freddy. "I don't think that's an option for any of us."

  Jim forced a smile onto his face. "Think positive," he said.

  "You one of those New Age nuts who believes happy thoughts can cure cancer?" she said.

  "No, but I think positive attitudes keep us sharper than despair."

  She nodded at this, as though conceding a point in a debate. "You a shrink or something?" she said.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "You talk like a shrink." She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She looked like she was consciously trying to assert control of herself. "And I told you – I know people."

  Jim smiled. "I do come into contact with a lot of... troubled people."

  "A shrink." Not a question this time. Karen almost smiled.

  The lights went out again. Xavier cursed. Adolfa hurried back toward Jim and sat beside him. He held her hand. Human contact in the face of the unknown. Maybe it wouldn't stop whatever was happening, but then again, maybe it might. Who could tell?

  At least it wasn't pitch black this time. The maintenance lights could still be seen outside the cars, streaking past so quickly that each looked like a continuous strip of illumination rather than an isolated patch of brightness in an otherwise dark tunnel.

  Then the lights outside did dim. Not like they were losing power, or like the windows were growing opaque, but in much the same way that the sun dims when a cloud passes in front of it. Like a shadow was moving around the car.

  Jim thought he caught sight of something. He flicked his gaze to the side, but whatever it was, it was too fast for him to spot.

  "What is this?" Olik muttered. He sounded worried. So even the imperturbable Georgian had been rattled by the way Freddy had – well, died seemed like too tame a term for what had happened to him. Even murdered didn't seem to capture the violence, the mayhem.

  "Don't know, bro," said Xavier. Jim noted the term of familiarity. He wondered what the two men had been talking about while he was chatting with Karen. He suspected it wasn't anything that would bode well for the other passengers.

  There! He turned quickly in the other direction. Almost caught a glimpse of it this time. Was that a hand? A palm pressed against the glass of one of the windows? Jim didn't think that could be possible – after all, what kind of person would be able to hold onto the outside of the rocketing subway car? – but that was the impression left in his mind after his eyes saw only darkness and the continuing sizzle of the outside lights in whatever tunnel to nowhere they had found themselves.

  The others were turning this way and that as well, and there were muffled gasps and gulps. Jim suspected they were all seeing – or not seeing – the same thing he was. Bits and pieces of nothing. Impressions of hands slapping at the glass. Palms pressed on the outside of windows on a train going far too fast for anyone to be holding on outside it.

  "We gonna do this, bro?" said Xavier.

  Olik looked at the gangster. Then at the others. Something creaked, a dry but familiar sound, and Jim realized it was the sound of Karen's fingers tightening on her leather satchel. She was scared. Not only of what was now happening outside the subway car, but of what the two men within might be talking about.

  Where are the real monsters? Are they outside the car, or in here among us?

  Jim couldn't answer that question. He hoped the only thing he had to worry about was whatever was causing this strange nightmare. But looking at Olik and Xavier, he couldn't be sure.

  The movement outside continued. Just out of view. Hands, pale in the flashing lights, gone as fast as they had come. And now a flash of hair, long but thin and unkempt. Again, gone before Jim could gather more than an impression of what he was seeing.

  Olik nodded at Xavier. The thug reached into his coat, then stopped when a sound shattered the silence of the car. Jim looked toward it. Everyone did. And he knew what he'd see. Before he looked, he knew.

  The door at the front of the car, the door that had been locked, the door whose glass had turned dark as the deepest pit.

  It was open.

  TWO

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  Xavier and Olik looked at each other, and it didn't take a psychiatrist to know that they were having some kind of silent pow-wow.

  "Check it out?" said Xavier.

  "I think so, yes," said Olik. Xavier stepped toward the open door. The Georgian reached out one of his ham-sized hands and grabbed the gangster around the bicep. "Send one of the others first," he said.

  Xavier nodded, then turned to the group. "I need a volunteer," he said.

  Jim looked away. He thought he had seen something outside. Not just a hand this time, but a face. A pale girl's face, mouth open in a silent scream. He got the impression of a teenager, a girl who had once been beautiful but was now… something else. Something ugly. Terrifying in a way that only lost beauty can be.

  Of course, when he looked, the girl – if that was what it had been – was gone.

  "You. Thank you for volunteering."

  A chill ran up Jim's spine. He was sure that Xavier was a murderous psychopath. Just as sure that the man had chosen him to go first into the next car while Jim had been looking at the window. He looked back.

  But Xavier wasn't pointing at Jim. Wasn't even looking at him. He had his strong hand wrapped around Adolfa's wrist. "Get up, Gramma," he said.

  "Let me go," said Adolfa. She knocked at Xavier's hand with her small fists. She might as well have been punching a mountain. "Let me go!"

  Xavier yanked the old woman to her feet. Pulled her toward the gaping maw of the open door. Olik followed.

  Jim looked at Karen. "We should do something," he whispered.

  Karen didn't move. "Be my guest," she said.

  And again, Jim didn't know what could be done. He could rush the two guys, he supposed, but didn't know what that would accomplish. Both of them were dangerous men, both of them were armed and proficient with their weapons.

  "Dammit," he muttered.

  Karen laughed, a short bark of a laugh that held no humor in i
t.

  "Please," Adolfa was pleading. "Por favor, mi hijo."

  "I ain't no one's damn hijo," said Xavier. He had his knife out, and he poked her with it. Not hard enough to do permanent damage, but obviously hard enough to convince her to move faster. Adolfa threw a terrified look over her shoulder. She locked eyes with Jim.

  Jim felt himself half-rising from his seat. "Guys," he said.

  "Sit," said Olik. The huge man didn't even glance back at him.

  "We're all better off if we work together," said Jim.

  "Sit," growled the Georgian. And now he was looking at Jim. And pointing one of his guns at him. The bore of the weapon looked big enough for Jim to fall into.

  Jim melted back onto his seat. He felt ashamed. Looking at Adolfa, he wanted to ask her forgiveness. But a large part of him was also glad that it hadn't been him chosen to go first. He had to live. He had to get back to Carolyn and Maddie.

  Xavier and Adolfa were at the open door to the next car.

  "What you see?" said Olik.

  "Nothin'," said Xavier. "Too dark."

  "What you mean too dark?" said Olik. "What of lights outside?"

  "I mean what I said, bro. It's black in here." He pushed Adolfa with his knife again, and again she yelped. Even in the dim car, Jim could see the back of her outfit stain with blood. Not a huge amount, but it was clear Xavier wouldn't mind stabbing the old woman if he thought the situation demanded it, or if he thought doing so would aid him.

  Sociopath.

  The word flew into Jim's mind. Someone who didn't have any sense of empathy, who only valued his own purposes and goals. Someone who would do anything to get ahead and who would refuse to see any faults in himself – any problems encountered would be seen as the result of others' shortcomings. Someone with no conscience, no sense of right or wrong beyond what would bring him what he wanted. Jim knew about sociopaths. And from what he was seeing, Xavier certainly seemed to fit the bill.