‘Look for another inspection shaft. A way up and out.’
‘We should have found this route earlier. The Captain would still be alive.’
A distant rumble. A tremor ran through the water.
‘There she blows,’ murmured Cloke.
He pictured the tunnel forty feet above their heads.
Chain detonations. Rock-roar: the tunnel and MTA locomotive obliterated by an avalanche of soil, bricks and fractured cement.
He pictured Nariko’s sub-aquatic tomb sealed by a cascade of rubble. Her body enclosed in eternal darkness.
They continued to fight the current as they headed south.
‘How you doing?’ asked Cloke.
‘Fine,’ panted Tombes.
Something massive up ahead. Vast bulk moving among shadows.
They drew closer.
Three huge turbine blades swept the circumference of the tunnel. Slow, stately revolutions. A manganese-bronze cloverleaf, like a ship’s screw. Under power, they would have spun at a blur, churning water towards the harbour outfall. The turbine motor was dormant, but the eight-ton blades still gently turned, propelled by relentless water pressure.
A body tumbled past them on the current. A guy in a suit. He hit the edge of a slow-moving blade. His head split in a cloud-burst of blood. He was snatched onwards down the tunnel.
‘How are we going to get past that thing?’ asked Tombes. ‘Can we jam it to a standstill?’
‘With what?’ asked Cloke. ‘Gas tanks? We need everything we’ve got.’
‘Jesus. We’ll get diced.’
They could feel it. A throb in the water. A subtle, sub-sonic pulse each time the great blades swept past.
‘Just got to time it right,’ said Cloke. ‘It’s moving slow. A three second interval between strokes. We can duck through, one at a time. I’ll go first.’
He edged closer to the blades. Inches away from blurred metal. He tensed his muscles and settled his breathing. Each sweep felt like a body-blow.
A blade swung past. He closed his eyes and pushed forwards, tensed for a bone-splintering impact.
He opened his eyes. He was through.
‘Go,’ shouted Tombes. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ll deal with Ekks. Just go. Find us a route up and out of here.’
A roof vent fifty yards south. Cloke’s helmet lamps lit a concrete inspection shaft lined with iron rungs.
‘Tombes. You all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m through. I’m cool.’
‘Looks like we got a way out.’
Cloke gripped rungs and hauled himself up the shaft hand-over-hand.
Lupe’s voice:
‘Where are you guys?’
‘Almost with you,’ said Cloke. ‘Had to circumvent a little obstruction.’
‘They’re here. They got inside the station. They’re on us.’
‘We’re seconds away. Couple of hundred yards and we’ll be at Fenwick.’
‘I’m heading down to the platform to meet you. We’ll have to fight our way to the plant room. Be ready.’
‘Ten-four.’
‘Move your asses. We’ve got a serious fight on our hands.’
39
Incinerated vehicles. Incessant rain.
Shotgun fire. Reverberations like thunder. Muffled concussions penetrated the skull-socket darkness of vacant windows and storefronts.
HONEYBEE.
A bombed-out boutique. Toppled clothes rails, scattered shoes, denim dusted with broken glass. Half-melted mannequins lay dismembered on the floor. Bald. Blank eyed. Arms and heads angled in a coquettish tease.
Clothing and hangers slowly pushed aside. A Hare Krishna, bald like a mannequin, come to life.
He climbed unsteadily to his feet. Coins fell from the folds of his robes and skittered across the floor.
He stood for a moment, swaying like a drunk.
He headed for the front of the store. His sandaled foot stamped through a dummy’s impassive face, shattering it like eggshell.
The Hare Krishna toppled through the storefront window and fell into the street. He lay on the rain-lashed sidewalk and looked around. Transformed vision cut through darkness like infrared. Rubble, buckled automobiles, toppled light poles.
Another distant gunshot.
The Krishna got to his feet and stumbled east.
Liberty Street.
The Krishna shuffled between buses, limos and yellow cabs, livery seared down to base metal.
He shambled past a meat truck. Faint lettering: CROWN MEATS sprayed out and DEPT OF HEALTH – DISPOSAL scrawled underneath. The rear doors leaned open. Infected bodies wrapped in sheets and hung from hooks. Still alive. They squirmed like larvae.
‘Come on, you fucks.’
A hoarse voice echoed from an alley off Liberty.
‘Come on, motherfuckers.’
The Krishna shuffled past the Doric facade of the old Federal Building. Doors boarded and chained.
He entered the alley. An arched gateway. Phantom letters and bolt holes in the stonework: SUBWAY.
A white tiled stairwell heading downwards. A mosaic sign: TO THE TRAINS.
Commotion near the top of the stairs. A big guy, surrounded by skeletal revenants. He thrashed in the confined space: kicked, punched and raged as he was slowly overwhelmed and dragged to the floor.
‘Fuck you. Fuck you, motherfuckers. Suck my fucking dick.’
Krishna descended the steps, arms outstretched.
Fresh blood.
Fresh meat.
He shouldered other infected creatures aside and gripped the man’s head.
‘Fuck you all to hell,’ screamed Wade.
The Hare Krishna pressed thumbs into sightless eyes, forced knuckle-deep into brain.
40
Tombes jammed his shoulder against the plant room door and struggled to hold it closed. Shuddering impacts. He braced his legs, strained against the blows. He was still wearing dive gear, still dripping tunnel water. Helmet and tanks dumped on the floor.
His feet lost purchase. Overboots skidded on concrete. The door was slowly pushed ajar.
A guy in bloodied pinstripe began to squirm through the gap.
Cloke threw himself against the door. Tombes kicked at the pinstripe creature, forcing it back into the hall.
Door slam. Sound of scrabbling fingers.
‘How many do you reckon?’ panted Cloke. ‘I counted five.’
‘We got to prop this thing.’
Lupe strained to push a heavy iron battery rack towards the door. Metal shriek.
Sicknote watched her work.
‘Help me, you dick,’ shouted Lupe.
Sicknote put his shoulder against the iron rack and helped shunt it against the door.
They stood back. Pounding fists. Scratching nails. The door shook.
‘Guess it will hold,’ said Cloke.