‘Hey,’ she shouted. ‘Donnie? What’s going on?’
‘It’s all right,’ said Galloway. ‘The generator stalled. Give me the matches. I’ll get her going.’
The plant room.
Galloway struck a match. The weak flame threw sulphurous shadows.
Scattered papers on the floor. He scrunched a few sheets into a fire bucket and lit them with the match. The yellowed, desiccated sheets burned fast like autumn leaves. He threw more paper onto the pyre. Sheaves crisped, blackened and curled.
He crouched by the inert generator. He tapped the fuel gauge. The level rested at zero. He unscrewed the fuel cap and began to decant kerosene from a plastic jerry can.
Radio crackle. Donahue’s voice:
‘Guys? What’s going on? What’s the deal with the lights?’
‘Give me a moment,’ said Galloway.
Rotted fingers gripped his shoulder. Nails dug into his flesh. Teeth sank into his neck.
He screamed. He twisted away. He dropped the kerosene. The plastic bottle fell on its side. Fuel washed across the floor.
The creature crouched and hissed.
It was dressed in the tattered remnants of a nurse’s uniform. White polyester streaked with blood and pus. Name tag: NGUYEN. Skin like leather, stretched taut over tendrillar tumours that snaked and branched down each limb. Arms bristled with metallic spines.
The creature’s shoulder was broken. Its right arm hung lose and useless.
Galloway scrambled clear, kicked distance between himself and the crouching, leering thing. He clapped a hand to his neck and checked his palm for blood, desperate to see if teeth had punctured his skin.
The monstrous figure crouched on its haunches, gathered strength and sprang forwards. Galloway scrambled to his feet. It was on him before he could run. He threw up his arms to protect his face. Bodyslam. They hit the floor. The creature sat on his chest, straining to reach his throat with its one good hand.
Galloway jammed his hand beneath its chin and struggled to push away the snapping, biting face. He groped for a weapon. He snatched a pencil from his breast pocket and punched it into the creature’s temple. Blood-spurt. Splintered wood nailed deep into flesh.
The creature twisted its head and gripped Galloway’s right forefinger between its teeth. It bit down. He screamed. It gnawed and ground its jaw. Frothing blood. Bone crunch. He roared in pain.
He fumbled for the jerry can. He gripped it and bludgeoned the creature’s head. He put all the force he could muster behind the blow. He hammered the skull-face, breaking a cheek bone.
The emaciated thing fell clear and climbed to its feet, dripping kerosene. It leered. It spat Galloway’s finger onto the floor.
It stepped towards him, arm outstretched.
Bare feet kicked through burning paper. The hem of the nurse’s smock caught alight. Polyester fabric smoked and shrivelled. Burning melt-drips hit the floor.
Galloway rolled, lunged for the kerosene can and threw it into the blaze.
Blue fire washed across the creature’s body turning it to a pillar of flame. It held up a burning hand, mesmerised by dancing light. Then it emitted a high, shrill shriek.
Galloway crawled away from the conflagration, shielding his face from the heat.
Lupe and Donahue ran into the room.
The blazing creature grabbed for Donahue. She aimed a high-kick at its belly and pushed it away. It thrashed. It bounced off walls. Donahue shot it in the gut. It struggled to stand. She kicked it in the face. It lay burning, movements slowing to a spastic dance, like a clockwork automaton winding down.
Donahue slapped shreds of burning fabric from her boot.
‘Look at that,’ she said. ‘Brain cooking in its skull. Poaching like an egg.’
Lupe ran to the ticket hall and fetched a hand extinguisher from the equipment bags.
‘Stand back.’
She broke the ring-tab and trained a stuttering burst of carbon smoke. She doused the burning figure, then turned the carbon jet on smouldering wall cables.
Shut off. Darkness. Silence.
Lupe set down the extinguisher and switched on a flashlight. The beam shafted through thick smoke. She trained the light on Galloway. He crouched by the wall, trembling with shock, hugging his injured hand to his chest. He shielded his eyes from the glare.
‘You all right?’
He didn’t reply.
She checked the generator for fire damage.
She crouched next to the carbonised body. She inspected contorted arms, skin blackened to a crust, fabric fused to bubbling, steaming flesh.
‘Damn,’ murmured Donahue.
Lupe examined the creature’s face. Black eyes. Mouth locked in a silent scream. Taut, carbonised lips. Brilliant white teeth.
The rib cage rose and fell, weak respirations, medulla retaining a last spark of will-to-life, like the dimming embers of a discarded cigarette.
A final, shuddering breath.
Lupe examined a half-melted name badge.
‘She worked for Ekks. One of his disciples. Vietnamese chick. Total bitch. A privilege to incinerate her ass.’
‘How the hell did she get in here? Where the hell was she hiding?’
Lupe stood up. She contemplated the shadows at the back of the room.
‘The Bellevue crew. About fifteen, twenty guys in total. Medics and soldiers. If they got infected, if they are sniffing around in the tunnels, then we’ve got a serious problem.’
27
Donahue and Lupe searched the recesses of the plant room. They crept between racks of chemical batteries.
Hand signals: go forwards, check left.
Donahue held the shotgun. Lupe held the flashlight. Blue haze. They shielded their mouths to mask the sour barbecue stink of cooked flesh. They blinked smoke-tears from their eyes.
An air-con turbine at the back of the room. Lupe’s flashlight lit blades furred with dust and webs. Huge, like someone detached the engine nacelle of a passenger jet and put it in storage.
‘Wouldn’t want to be standing here when that thing is switched on.’
The blades faced a duct mouth. The grille was ripped open. The torn mesh was tipped with flesh and tufts of white fabric.
Lupe shone her flashlight into the brick pipe. A ribbed, intestinal conduit receded to darkness. She held up her hand. A gentle air current. A fetid exhalation of tunnel breath.
Donahue crouched and examined the floor.
‘Give me more light.’
Blood drips.
‘Maybe that thing was already down here, with us,’ said Donahue. ‘Crawling round the ventilation pipes the whole time.’
‘Tight squeeze,’ said Lupe, contemplating the duct. ‘Hands and knees.’
Donahue gestured to a pile of boxes and cable drums.
‘We should stack some stuff in front of the grille. Do our best to plug it closed.’
‘But why now?’ asked Lupe, still mesmerised by the tunnel dark. ‘I don’t get it. Wade and Sicknote were camped in this room for days. They weren’t attacked. So what changed? How did the bitch sniff us out?’
Galloway sat on the ticket hall bench. He hugged his injured hand, face grey with shock.
Lupe sat beside him.
‘It’ll be all right, yeah?’ he pleaded. ‘Just got to clean the wound. Disinfect.’
‘You’re a dead man walking.’
Lupe thrust her hand inside his trouser pocket.
‘What are you doing?’ he said, drawing away.
She pulled out a fistful of shotgun cartridges.
‘This all you got? Five shells?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did you bring a bag? A backpack? Sure you don’t have a spare box of ammo somewhere?’
‘No.’
‘Five. And four in the gun. That’s not a whole lot of firepower.’