Page 46 of Them

The Nightwalker in turn had underestimated the man and allowed itself to be wounded. Lady Luck on his side, time after time. If he tried to run again, he would die. If he tried to hide or fight, the same would occur.

His only choice was to go where they couldn’t.

His eyes settled on the cavernous mouth of the Metro entrance across the street. The locomotive crypt called to him.

Before he could change his mind, he took off running and descended into the underbelly of the city. It was like stepping straight into the pits of hell. Pitch-black. Oppressively hot. The pouring rain above sounded like the crackling flames of an enormous fire. The wavering beam of his flashlight barely penetrated the inky malaise.

The corridor floors were slick with heliophobic algae and grime. The ceiling, boxed and layered like an egg carton, dripped and sagged under its own filthy weight. His light passed over something shiny on the wall, then swung back and found it again. It was an old rail map, hidden beneath the various algal and fungal growths that had sprouted on the fiberglass casing. He broke the glass with the butt of his shotgun and cleared it away.

The map itself was in sorry shape, marred by insect nibbles and liquid stains, but it was still legible. The man scoured the iconography until he located the biggest star on the map: the White House. Finally.

All he had to do now was take the Blue Line to the Federal Triangle stop, which appeared to be the next one over. So long as the YOU ARE HERE indicator was accurate and the subway architecture had held up, he had a straight shot to the grave of good old Uncle Sam.

After negotiating his way down an escalator frozen in time, the man squeezed through a rusted turnstile—sorry for fare beating—and entered what appeared to be another long corridor. Feeling like a rat in a maze, he lifted the flashlight and examined the walls beside him, then raised it to the ceiling… but the ceiling wasn’t there. All he could see was an empty hovering darkness. Cement swallowing the world.

Disoriented, he dragged the flashlight beam back down to his feet, reminding himself the floor was solidly beneath him. It’s the boarding platform, he told himself. A few more steps into the vast subterranean chamber and he could see the rails. There was even a sign pointing toward the Metro Center, the stop immediately after Federal Triangle.

A little calmer now, he pointed the light up again and held it steady. The ceiling was there… faint, but indeed there. The tunnels accommodating the boarding platform must’ve been three or four stories high, more than enough room for a Scorpion to pass, but the man felt almost certain that none would. The train entrances were definitely too small for something as large as a Nightwalker, so why did he feel so damn nervous?

Like a mouse terrified to step out from its crack in the wall: It’s just my habit.

He navigated the dark in slow, careful steps, keeping a careful eye out for hungry rats waiting to pounce. Even before the world ended, there were stories of subway rats the size of dogs attacking unsuspecting urban explorers. Once or twice, he thought he heard them rustling around in the dark, stealthy squeaks and squeals calling out to one another.

As he approached the Blue Line, he clamped the flashlight between his teeth, sat on the edge of the platform, dangled his legs, and carefully lowered himself onto the tracks.

His pulse quickening, he removed the light from his mouth and shone it ahead. Only steel rails reflected the glow. There was no Scorpion waiting in ambush. No horde of rabid rats with buckteeth bared. Good enough for me. He began walking, fancying the twin tracks as his very own runway to salvation or damnation, whichever one awaited him.

The daunting ceiling, which the flashlight had barely been able to reach, suddenly lowered again as the Blue Line entered a smaller tunnel enclosing a handful of other parallel tracks. The man didn’t have far to go now, a mile at most, so he took his time walking easy.

Not long after, he came to a small red tent standing off to the side of the tunnel.

“Hello?” he called out, his voice echoing through the vast black tube. “Anyone there?” And then, almost as an afterthought: “I’m warning you. I’m armed.” It was the most he’d spoken in months. Maybe years.

He waited a near minute for someone to answer, and when nobody did, he approached the tent. His right hand was clasped around the shotgun grip, the barrel resting on his left wrist, left hand holding the flashlight. He thought he might look stoic—like how the last man on Earth was supposed to look. But he had no movie makeup. His hands were invisible in the no-contrast tunnel; hair a blooming bush of unkept tangles; muscles a combination of bulging calves and slate-thin ribs. But still, he thought he looked stoic.

“L.B….? Is that you?”

Something crunched beneath his left foot, announcing the man’s arrival. He poked the barrel of the shotgun into the folds of the tent and swept them aside.

Inside was a pile of bones. Human bones. Picked clean. Nothing else. No supplies save for a few old rags. No weapons. Not even a pair of shoes. The man guessed whoever this was had died of dehydration or the like. Lack of sustenance. Or maybe it was the rats. The bones weren’t scattered as one would expect. Instead, they’d been jumbled together in a clumsy pile.

Scavengers. Just like me.

He backed away from the tent, sweeping the light behind the red shelter, and a small dark shadow detached itself from the wall, skittering down the tunnel. Speak of the devil! Beating back panic, the man spun around with the flashlight, certain he would find a hundred of the feral fiends ready to pounce.

There weren’t a hundred, but at least a dozen. Their slick, shiny hides caught his whirling beam, demon-red eyes glaring back from the darkness. Hideous pink noses twitched and sniffed at the man’s boots.

Without a word, the man reeled back and kicked the nearest rat—not dog-sized, but still as big as a cat—sending it hurtling into the opaque darkness with a wounded squeal. He punted away another one of the rodents, and the others made a hasty retreat to the opposite side of the tunnel.

The man took off down the tracks. They’re nocturnal, he thought as he jogged away from the tent. Probably just woke them up. After he gained some distance, he slowed his pace to a steady walk. Every fifteen or twenty steps, he’d turn around and walk backward, tracing the flashlight along the floor and walls. Five or six steps like that, and he’d pivot forward again, shotgun raised all the while.

He saw plenty of rats—and heard five times as many—but none seemed interested in bothering him. As if word had already gotten around. Most hugged the walls as he passed, watching him with their putrid jack-o’-lantern eyes. They seemed as wary of him as he was of them.

Were the rats praying that the long-legged fiend would ignore them? They pressed their greasy bodies together, glowering at the flesh-faced human of old, swelling into swarming shadows of more serious size. The beast of a dozen backs scowled at the extinct villain, warding it back, but the long-legs scarcely turned to them. There were no shoots of sulfur, no pompous gas to root them out, no traps or cats. The human and his bright beam simply came and went. Chittering questions seeped from the walls as the rats watched him walk away, wondering where he’d been all this time.

The man thought of the tent-man. Which wasn’t quite accurate—he wasn’t sure if they’d been a man or a woman or if they’d cared for neither. He knew not what they cared for at all. The dueling monosyllables in “tent-man” simply sounded the best to him, though he had no one to speak them aloud to.

Yet something bothered him. Food and drink had never been an issue, not in this apocalypse. Humanity had left behind enough consumable waste to fuel whatever paltry portion of its population remained. So then why’d you die all alone in the dark? What was it? Infected leg? Rat bite? Didn’t bring enough food down here? Water? Does it matter? The only story left was the rat-stack of bones and a lonely red tent in the windless dark. This person had died of fear while the man walked the countryside. That was good. That told the man that he wasn’t a coward. Not in his totality. That told him it wasn’t all luck.